Joan La Barbara (voice), composer/performer/sound-artist is an internationally renowned pioneer in exploring the human voice as a multifaceted instrument, expanding traditional boundaries, developing a unique vocabulary of experimental and extended vocal techniques: multiphonics, circular singing, ululation and glottal clicks that have become her “signature sounds”. She composes works for multiple voices, chamber ensembles, theater, film, video, dance, orchestra and interactive technology. Her multi-layered textural compositions have been performed at international festivals including Brisbane Biennial, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Warsaw Autumn, Frankfurt Feste, Lincoln Center, Metamusik-Berlin and Olympics Arts Festivals. Her soundwork “73 Poems”, in collaboration with text-artist Kenneth Goldsmith, was included in The American Century Part II at The Whitney Museum of American Art. She was Artistic Director of the multi-year Carnegie Hall series “When Morty met John”. ”Messa di Voce”, her interactive media work in collaboration with Jaap Blonk, Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman, premiered at ars electronica festival in Linz, Austria in 2003. Her voice with electronics score for “Children’s Television Workshop/Sesame Street” has broadcast worldwide since 1977. “One of the great vocal virtuosas of our time” (San Francisco Examiner), La Barbara is currently at work composing an opera exploring the interior dialogue and sounds within the mind.
MEMBERS
- Joan La Barbara
- Shelley Burgon
- Yves Dharamraj
- Miguel Frasconi
- Stephen Gosling
- Ariana Kim
- Christopher McIntyre
Shelley Burgon is a harpist and electronic musician based in New York City. Prior to moving to New York, Shelley received her MFA from Mills College and studied with notable musicians such as Pauline Oliveros, Fred Frith, and Maryanne Amacher. While living in New York, Shelley has performed and recorded with artists such as Bjork, John Zorn, Butch Morris, Christian Marclay, Joan LaBarbara, Elliott Sharp and the band Stars Like Fleas. Notable performances have occurred at venues such as the Whitney Museum, MoMA, MoMA PS1, Dia:Beacon, Chelsea Art Museum, and Issue Project Room. Her music has been commissioned by The Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Ne(x)tworks (MATA Festival) and the choreographer Katherine Behar.
Recent projects of 2011/2012 have included recording harp for Bjork’s new release Biophilia and Anthony Braxton’s Trillium E. Shelley plays harp and laptop in the chamber group Ne(x)tworks featuring Joan La Barbara and currently performs solo under the name Rowan.
A top-prize winner in the Ima Hogg, Irving M. Klein, Juilliard, and Florida Orchestra competitions, Franco-American cellist Yves Dharamraj enjoys an international career as soloist, recitalist and chamber musician with appearances on many of the world’s biggest stages. Past highlights include concerto performances with the Houston Symphony, the Green Bay Symphony, the Asian Artists and Concerts Orchestra, and the Juilliard Orchestra, among others.
Dr. Dharamraj currently is an artist fellow in the Academy, a collaboration between Juilliard, Carnegie Hall, the Weill Institute of Music, and the NYC Department of Education that places emerging concert and teaching artists within public schools to nurture arts education and appreciation among younger audiences. He explores the rich chamber music repertoire as a founding member of the Moët Trio, and indulges in the improvisatory avant-garde with the group Ne(x)tworks.
In 1998 following studies with Mussie Eidelman and Scott Kluksdahl, Dr. Dharamraj matriculated at Yale University where he graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History, a Master of Music degree, and an Artist Diploma under the guidance of the renowned pedagogue Aldo Parisot. He has also studied with Paul Katz at the New England Conservatory, and at the Juilliard School with Darrett Adkins and Joel Krosnick, for whom he served as teaching assistant from 2006 to 2009 while earning his Doctor of Musical Arts degree.
Miguel Frasconi is a composer and performer who uses electronics, laptop, and an instrumentarium of glass objects to create music from a uniquely imagined tradition. His glass instruments are struck, blown, stroked, smashed and otherwise coaxed into vibration. His array of activities have included collaborations with the Balinese composer Dewa Berata on music for a large-scale shadowplay, with operatic tenor John Duykers on unique music/theater events, and with the Tibetan songwriter Techung, with whom he has toured throughout India. Miguel has worked closely with composers John Cage, Jon Hassell, James Tenney, Morton Subotnick, and has collaborated with many choreographers, including modern dance pioneer Anna Halprin. He was a founding member of The Glass Orchestra, the internationally renowned ensemble featuring all glass instruments, and is presently a member of the new music group Ne(x)works. Miguel’s music has been released on New Albion Records and new recording of duets for glass and piano, with Denman Maroney, has been released on Porter Records. A recording of his string quartets featuring JACK Quartet will be released next year on the Tzadik label. Miguel is currently a visiting professor at the Bard College Electronic Music Studios and director of the Bard Laptop Orchestra.
Pianist Stephen Gosling’s playing has been hailed as “electric” and “luminous and poised” (New York Times), and possessing “utter clarrity and conviction” (Washington Post) and “extraordinary virtuosity” (Houston Chronicle).
Mr. Gosling earned his Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees at the Juilliard School. During his tenure he was awarded the Mennin Prize for Outstanding Excellence and Leadership in Music and the Sony Elevated Standards Fellowship. He was also featured as concerto soloist an unprecedented four times.
Mr. Gosling is a member of New York New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Sospeso and Columbia Sinfonietta. He has also performed with Orpheus, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, American Composers Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Riverside Symphony, Speculum Musicae, Ensemble 21, DaCapo Chamber Players, Continuum, SEM Ensemble, the League of Composers/ISCM Chamber Players, and Da Camera of Houston.
Mr. Gosling has recorded for Albany, Bridge, Centaur, CRI, Innova, Koch, Mode, Morrison Music Trust, Naxos, New World Records, and Rattle Records.
Noted by the New York Times for giving “the proceedings an invaluable central thread of integrity and stylishness,” violinist Ariana Kim made her New York recital debut at Carnegie’s Weill Hall in March 2008 as the recipient of a prestigious Artists International Award, and is now a violin professor at the University of Indianapolis. She recently received her DMA degree from Juilliard under the tutelage of Robert Mann and prior to that, served an interim season as acting concertmaster of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in New Orleans. Ariana has made extensive solo and collaborative appearances with various orchestras and ensembles that have taken her throughout the United States, Asia, Europe, and South Africa.
An avid chamber musician of both the contemporary and traditional literature, Ariana marks her eighth season as a member of the New Yorker-acclaimed new music ensemble, Ne(x)tworks, with whom she improvises, performs, composes, and records. Their most recent CD of Earle Brown chamber works was released on Mode Records in April of 2007. She is currently in her ninth season with the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota as a Senior Artist, with whom she can be heard on Minnesota Public Radio.
In the winter of 2005, Ariana made the world premiere of Concertino for violin and chamber orchestra, written especially for her by the late Andrew Imbrie, with Mark Russell Smith and the Richmond Symphony. She is also a member of The Knights, a New York-based imaginative flux ensemble that performs programs ranging from unconducted string orchestra works to the great symphonic masterpieces of the 20th century. In October of 2008, The Knights completed a recording of American works featuring Copland, Ives, and Dvorak for SONY Classical Records and recently returned from a concert tour in Germany.
Currently, Ariana co-resides in Indianapolis and New York City while enjoying a life full of performing, teaching, traveling, food, and yoga.
Christopher McIntyre leads a multifaceted career in the contemporary arts as a solo and ensemble performer, composer, and curator/producer. The diversity of his activities led Time Out New York to note that “…with every passing week, trombonist-composer Chris McIntyre becomes more central to the new-music experience in New York.” (Nov. ’09) He performs on trombone and synthesizer in a variety of settings that often incorporate improvisation within notation. Current projects include leading TILT Brass and 7X7 Trombone Band , and collaborative efforts such as Ne(x)tworks. His playing is heard on recordings released by the Tzadik, New World, and Mode labels. In his composing, McIntyre has experimented with conceptual elements such as spatialization, recontextualized notated material, and improvisative strategy, along with ideas of scale, symmetrical pitch constructions, and self-similarity. He has contributed work to the repertoire of TILT, Ne(x)tworks, 7X7 Trombone Band (for choreographer Yoshiko Chuma), Flexible Orchestra, and B3+ brass trio. Beyond performing and creating music, McIntyre is also active as a curator and concert producer, with independent projects at venues including The Kitchen, Issue Project Room, and The Stone (June 2007), and as Artistic Director of the MATA Festival (07-10).