Performers

Recent winner of the New Music USA Project Grant, and now McKnight Fellow, has presented performances and taught master classes throughout Europe, the Caribbean, and North America. A native Puerto Rican (born and raised in Mayagüez PR) and musician activist, Zayas Cabán now resides in Minneapolis MN and is building an artistic career focused on developing projects, albums, and collaborations that address, respond to, and raise awareness about current events and social issues.

Composer and guitarist William Kentner Anderson began playing chamber music at the Tanglewood Festival at age 19. He later performed with the Metropolitan Opera Chamber Players, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, NY Philharmonic, and many other NYC-based ensembles and organizations. Anderson was recently featured at the Festival Internacional Camarata 21 in Xalapa, Vera Cruz, Mexico, Ebb & Flow Arts in Maui, and Moderne Mandag in Copenhagen and was a member of the Theater Chamber Players, the resident ensemble at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.

Ralph Sorrentino is the Director of Percussion Studies at West Chester University, where he teaches applied percussion and directs the West Chester University Percussion Ensemble. Sorrentino also serves as Principal Percussionist with the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra and Section Percussionist with the Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra. Sorrentino’s work with Opera Philadelphia includes critically acclaimed performances at Philadelphia’s historic Academy of Music, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, and Harlem’s world-famous Apollo Theater. Sorrentino was the principal percussionist for Opera Philadelphia’s April 2016 New York premiere performances of Charlie Parker’s YARDBIRD, which marked the first time that opera was performed on the Apollo Theater stage.

He shared a birthday with composers Benjamin Britten and Joaquín Rodrigo. He died the same day as Andrés Segovia. Hailed as “one of our age’s truly important composers,” Frank Wallace was a rare artist whose wizardry on his instrument rivaled the range and depth of his musical ideas in composition. He left us at 67 at the height of his powers, having enjoyed a distinguished career as a concert and recording artist, composer, director, and teacher. The American Record Guide calls Wallace’s music “exciting, unpredictable, and fresh” and Guitar Review “a brilliant collection of new repertoire performed by its composer, who happens to play with equal amounts of grace, sensitivity, and virtuosity.”  His colleagues speak with one voice—guitarist Bill Kanengiser: “What a shining and big-hearted spirit, imbued with laughter, love and boundless creativity. [His] grace and artistry are an inspiration to us all.”—composer Stephen Goss: “a wonderful human, a deep thinker and a fantastic musician…Inventiveness, creativity, and fantasy in abundance.”

One of the most decorated saxophonists of her generation, Nicki Roman has won prizes at prestigious competitions such as the North American Saxophone Alliance (NASA) Solo Competition, Music Teachers National Association Young Artist Solo Competition, William C. Byrd International Competition, Fischoff, and the Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship. She has been a featured concerto soloist with the Eastman Symphony Orchestra, Eastman Wind Ensemble, UW-Milwaukee Wind Ensemble, Illinois Wind Symphony, University of North Florida Orchestra, and the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra. Across North America, Europe, and Asia, Nicki has shared solo and chamber music performances at venues such as the China National Centre for the Performing Arts, Shandong University of the Arts, Zagreb Academy of Music, Krannert Center for Performing Arts, Rio All-Suite Casino in Las Vegas, Brevard Summer Music Festival, and the Zelazo Performing Arts Center.

Alan Rinehart has over 45 years experience as a professional classical guitarist with many contributions to the guitar world as a performer, teacher, and music editor. Upon completing university he studied lute repertoire and technique in London, England at the Early Music Centre.

The 2014 and 2018 Latin Grammy® Nominee for Best Classical Album and 2008 Grammy® Nominee for Best Instrumental Soloist without Orchestra, pianist Allison Brewster Franzetti has received international acclaim from critics and audiences alike for her stunning virtuosity and musicality, both as a soloist and chamber musician. Her performances include the live Latin Grammy® Awards television broadcast, the Grammy® Awards Classical Music Tribute to Earl Wild and Lang Lang at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the American Classical Music Hall of Fame, the Robert Schumann Festival at the Marcella Sembrich Museum in Lake George NY, the Campeche Festival in Mexico, and at the opening of the VI International Festival of Music at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Lucia Lin has performed as soloist, as chamber musician, and in orchestras throughout the United States and internationally in a diverse multi-faceted career that also includes teaching and collaborative efforts with both visual and performing arts. Lin made her debut at age 11, performing the Mendelssohn Concerto with the Chicago Symphony and went on to be a prize winner in numerous competitions, including Moscow’s prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition. Described as a soloist with “virtuosity and insight” who is “passionate and graceful” (Indianapolis Star), and whose playing has “a genuine fresh quality not often heard” (Cincinnati Enquirer), Lin’s performances include solo appearances with orchestras in Europe as well as a solo recital at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

The Sonic Arts Ensemble, founded by Marc Ainger and Ann Stimson (with Federico Cámara Halac as occasional co-director for this recording), is interested in sound and music as a multi-modal, embodied phenomenon. Their repertoire ranges from composed, notated scores to freely-structured co-improvisations. During the pandemic, the ensemble became a truly international group, leveraging the online environment to contribute to the emergent medium of networked performance, with members and guests joining together from the United States, Argentina, and Austria. Using software such as Jacktrip (Chris Chafe et al), and the elegantly titled Netty McNetFace (Puckette), the ensemble created audio networks using low-latency, high quality, uncompressed audio, facilitating real-time collaboration over “a long, thin wire” (hat tip to composer Alvin Lucier). The tracks here represent the ensemble’s live performances across the internet during this time.

With a charismatic blend of technical flair, polish, and grace, Portuguese-Canadian clarinetist Wesley Ferreira is widely considered a gifted expressionist. Equally at ease performing masterworks and contemporary repertoire, he has been praised by critics for his “beautiful tone” and “technical prowess” (The Clarinet Journal) as well as his “remarkable sensitivity” (CAML Review), and Fanfare Magazine notes that he is “clearly a major talent.”

An engaging and accomplished clarinetist, Andrea Vos-Rochefort regularly premieres new works in recitals and at Clarinetfest, and has performed with the Dayton Philharmonic, Orchestra Kentucky, Richmond Symphony, Lima Orchestra, Carmel Symphony, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony, Corpus Christi Symphony, Midland-Odessa Symphony, and San Antonio Symphony. Vos-Rochefort is the Assistant Professor of Clarinet at Texas A&M University-Kingsville and previously served as Adjunct Instructor of Clarinet at University of Dayton and Stivers School for the Arts.

With his unique blending of musical styles, cellist Caleb Vaughn-Jones’s playing style has been described by The Baltimore Sun as an “exploratory grasp of the cello with an anything-but-classical approach to the classical repertoire.”

Born in Charleston SC, Vaughn-Jones had his first exposure to classical music by attending performances by the Charleston Symphony Orchestra.

During his teens, he was inspired by a wide range of musical styles. However, he grew increasingly interested in jazz and classical music during this time.

Sarah Belle Reid is a performer-composer who plays trumpet, modular synthesizer, and an ever-growing collection of handcrafted electroacoustic instruments. Her unique musical voice explores the intersections between contemporary classical music, experimental and interactive electronics, sound installation, visual arts, noise music, and improvisation. Often praised for her ability to transport audience members through vivid sonic adventures, Reid’s sonic palette has been described as ranging from “graceful” and “danceable” all the way to “silk-falling-through-space,” and “pit-full-of-centipedes” (San Francisco Classical Voice).

David Rosenboom is a post-genre composer-performer, interdisciplinary artist, author, and educator known as a pioneer in American experimental music. Since the 1960s, his multi-disciplinary work has traversed ideas about spontaneously evolving musical forms, languages for improvisation, new techniques in scoring, cross-cultural and large-form collaborations, performance art and literature, interactive multimedia and new instrument technologies, generative algorithmic systems, art-science research and philosophy, and extended musical interface with the human nervous system. He was Dean of The Herb Alpert School of Music at California Institute of the Arts from 1990 through 2020, where he now holds the Roy E. Disney Family Chair in Musical Composition.

Dr. Sang-Hie Lee, Professor of Music at the University of South Florida, is an active teacher, pianist, researcher, author, and cross-disciplinary administrator. As the founder of Ars Nostra, she performs piano ensemble music by significant living composers: her music is featured on six albums by Ravello, Centaur, Capstone, and Albany labels. Lee is the principal author of Scholarly Research in Music: Shared and Disciplinary-Specific Practices (McGraw Hill, 2012-2013, Routledge 2017, 2022). She is the primary editor of Perspectives in Performing Arts Medicine: A Multidisciplinary Approach (Springer 2020) and was the founding Editor of the Cultural Expressions in Music Monographs Series (College Music Society 2008-2014). She is the author of 74 scholarly publications, has presented 85 conference papers, keynotes, and lectures, hosted seven international conferences, and performed numerous solo and chamber-music concerts in the United States, South Korea, China, Serbia, Brazil, Italy, and Canada.

Pianist Dr. Martha Thomas has given concerts and presentations across the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe, South America, and Africa. Thomas is featured on 11 albums on the ACA Digital, Centaur, Ravello, and Albany labels. Her latest, ECHOES: Past and Future, features music from the 20^th and 21^st centuries, including Noggin by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Melinda Wagner. She has been praised for the “lyrical beauty of her playing” and “her mastery of rhythmic and textural complexities.”

Formed in 2014, DRAX is a faculty ensemble-in-residence at the University of Missouri School of Music with Leo Saguiguit (saxophone) and Megan Arns (percussion). Dedicated to performing and creating new repertoire for this unique combination of instruments, the duo made its international debut at the World Saxophone Congress in Strasbourg, France. DRAX has performed at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, conferences of the North American Saxophone Alliance, Odyssey Chamber Music Series of Columbia, Mareck Center for Dance, and residencies at universities including Virginia Tech University, Sam Houston State University, Colorado State University, and the Eastman School of Music.

Chris Chafe is a composer, improvisor, and cellist, developing much of his music alongside computer-based research. He is Director of Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). At IRCAM (Paris) and The Banff Centre (Alberta), he pursued methods for digital synthesis, music performance, and real-time internet collaboration. CCRMA's SoundWIRE project involves live concertizing with musicians the world over. Online collaboration software including jacktrip and research into latency factors continue to evolve. An active performer either on the net or physically present, his music reaches audiences in dozens of countries and sometimes at novel venues.

The ANIMO flute and piano duo is the creation of flautist Sarah Waycott and pianist Yanna Zissiadou. Both experienced performers and educators, they came together in 2018 to form an idea for a contemporary music duo that will break through the “Classical Music” norms and perform music that is soulful and accessible by all, regardless of its origins, style, and medium.

Avner Finberg is an Israeli-American composer and violinist. He studied composition with Ari Ben-Shabtai at The Jerusalem Academy of Music, with Robert Cuckson at The Mannes College, and with Susan Botti at Manhattan School of Music, where he earned a doctorate dfasin composition in 2015.

Finberg’s music has been described by Steven Stucky as “reined, mature work of impeccable technique, original voice, and considerable ambition.” His musical inspirations stem from his Israeli roots and his current life in the United States, combining without discrimination multiple world music traditions with contemporary and classical music techniques and modern technology.