2015 Participants
Antares (Tara) Boyle is a PhD student in music theory at the University of British Columbia, where her research focuses on music of the past fifty years. Her research interests include formal and motivic processes in post-tonal music, musical expression and performance, and perception of time and periodicities in unmetered music. She has presented her theoretical work at the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic annual conference. Before beginning her studies in music theory, Tara worked for several years as a flutist in Los Angeles, where she played in recital halls, museums, libraries, universities, and lofts around town as part of LA’s vibrant new music scene. As a flutist specializing in contemporary repertoire, she has performed in the US, Canada, and Australia, and given lecture recitals on music by Toshio Hosokawa and Toru Takemitsu. Tara also holds a Master’s degree in flute performance from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
Andrew D’Antonio is completing his master’s of music with a dual concentration in music history and collaborative piano at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He holds a bachelor’s of music in piano performance from Pacific Lutheran University and a master’s of science in teaching from Fordham University in early childhood special education. As a pianist, Andrew regularly performs chamber music, and as an advocate for new music, he has commissioned and premiered multiple new works. His research interests includes exile studies, nationalism, the authenticity movement, and performance in the United States during the 20th century.
Daniel Fawcett is a composer who is seeking to explore both new and interesting sound worlds. Combined with an interest in the musical traditions of non-western cultures he does not seek to create a fusion of styles, but instead prefers to let the clash between sonic worlds take center stage. This approach has led to a highly improvisation based way of writing that seeks to give an interesting experience to both audiences and performers alike. His teachers have included Joe McNally in San Diego, as well Stacy Garrop and Kyong Mee Choi at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Looking to incorporate several different types of media and performance styles in performances has led to his collaborations with painters, poets and filmmakers. Drawing upon a diverse musical background has also led to the incorporation of several different musical styles in his music from the modern to the primitive. These collaborations and interactions have allowed for a unique insight and understanding of many other forms of art. He is currently pursuing a M.M. at New York University’s Steinhardt School studying with Joan La Barbara.
Qingfan Jiang is a first-year PhD student in Historical Musicology at Columbia University. She has obtained her master’s degree from Rice University in 2014. Her main interests include fin-de-siècle French music and Western music in China from 1600 to 1800. She gave a paper on Debussy and the reception of Rameau at a conference last September in Melbourne, Australia.
Robert Komaniecki received an undergraduate degree in music from the University of Minnesota in 2012, and will receive his M.A. in music theory from the same institution this spring. Robert has interests in recent trends in popular music and pedagogy of music theory and aural skills. Robert has an extensive background in singing, and currently sings bass in a professional choir in Minneapolis and sits as director of a small community LGBT chorus.
Sam Krahn is a Minneapolis based guitarist, performer, composer, and teacher. His works have been performed by members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Fidelio Trio, Ensemble Uusinta, Duo Gelland, Christina Baldwin, Lara Bolton, Benjamin Cold, Lux String Quartet, Contemporary Music Workshop, the Anaphora Ensemble, and many others. He has received numerous commissions to compose new works for Ed Harrison of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Maraca Concerto), Duo Gelland (Resistance/Resonance), the Fidelio Trio (Trio), Harper College (Spring Dirge), Benjamin Cold (flux-mirror), and the Anaphora Contemporary Ensemble (String Quartet No. 1). He participated in the MATA Festival in New York City, the Source Song Festival in Minneapolis, and the 70th annual Cheltenham Music Festival in England. He most recently received a grant from New Music USA for a new 35-minute work for saxophone and electronics. Sam is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in music composition at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, studying with James Dillon.
Anna Rose Nelson holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Theory and Composition from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN and is currently working to finsh her Master’s Degree in Music Theory at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Her research interests include string quartets of the 20th and 21st centuries, critical theory, aesthetics, and form. As a violist, Anna enjoys playing in the Contemporary Music Workshop at UMN, in small chamber ensembles, and with Twin Cities rock groups.
Originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, Megan Quilliam completed her undergraduate work in Australia at the University of Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music, receiving a Bachelor’s Degree of Music (Musicology). While there, she completed an honor’s thesis entitled “‘The Way I am Bound to Africa:’ Expression of South African Identity in the Music of Stefans Grové and Kevin Volans.” Megan also co-founded and co-edited the Undergraduate Journal of Musicology, the Sydney Conservatorium’s first student-run journal. Megan is currently in the 2nd year of the PhD Ethnomusicology program at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her research interests center on the mixture of European art music customs with the traditional music of South Africa, as well as the musical activities of South African composers living abroad. She currently performs with the University of Colorado’s World Music Choir and Regis University’s Collegium Musicum.
Christopher S. Prosser (b. 1978, San Francisco, CA) is a composer and conductor of contemporary art music. His compositional output includes works for orchestra, the theater, film, various chamber ensembles, choir, art songs, and solo pieces, all of which are primarily inspired by the visual arts, literature, and nature. His music has been featured in a variety of venues which include the Cortona Sessions for New Music, the Oregon Bach Festival Composer’s Symposium, Portland State University’s Theater Arts Program, the Brevard Music Center, and NACUSA. Christopher music has been performed by the UT New Music Ensemble, DuoSolo, the Riverside Chamber Symphony, ITCH Ensemble, the Eugene Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, the Sospiro New Music Vocal Ensemble, the University of Oregon Women’s Choir, the Oregon Bach Festival’s American Creators Ensemble, the Louisiana Sinfonietta, and the LSU Men’s Choir. Currently, he is currently pursuing a DMA at the University of Texas at Austin, and is employed as a teaching assistant in the music theory department. At UT, he has studied with composers Dan Welcher, Russell Pinkston, Donald Grantham, Yevgeniy Sharlat, and Bruce Pennycook.
Kate Rogers is currently pursuing her PhD in Historical Musicology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where she also works as an intern with The Cleveland Orchestra Archives. Her research interests include performance practice, amateur music-making in seventeenth-century England, and topics relating to popular music and gender. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in viola performance, string pedagogy, and musicology from the University of Oregon, where she completed her master’s thesis, “Fragments of an Oral Tradition: ‘Re-Envisioning’ the Seventeenth Century Division Violin,” in 2012. As a violist, Kate has performed regularly with the Oregon Mozart Players, Corvallis Symphony, and Oregon Bach Collegium, and participated in music festivals in California, Washington, Vermont, and São Paulo, Brazil. She currently plays tenor viola da gamba in the Case Western Viol Consort.
Michael Rogers is currently a PhD music theory student at the University of North Texas, scheduled to graduate in May of this year. His teaching experience includes eleven years as a high school band director, two years as a music theory teaching Fellow at UNT, and eight years teaching music theory and ear training courses at Dallas Baptist University. His Dissertation, “Tonality and the Extended Common Practice in the Music of Thad Jones,” presents modern tonal jazz as an amalgamation of traditions including Renaissance modality, Baroque and Classical descending fifth progressions, 19th century efficient voice leading, and 20th century scale-based procedures. His research interests include modern jazz, Renaissance modal theory, and 20th century tonality.
Laura Schwartz is a composer and horn player who grew up in Southern California. She attended the University of California, Davis (B.A. in Music 2013) where she studied primarily with Laurie San Martin, Sam Nichols, and Ross Bauer. In 2014, her music was performed during the Oregon Bach Festival Composer’s Symposium. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Music Composition from Illinois State University where she studies with Martha Horst and Roy Magnuson. Laura lives in Bloomington, Illinois with her fraternal twin sister.
Daniel J. Thompson currently resides in Tallahassee, FL, where he is pursuing a PhD in music theory and teaching sophomore-level courses in tonal and post-tonal analysis. In addition to core doctoral studies at FSU, Daniel has studied composition with Ladislav Kubík and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, electroacoustic music with Mark Wingate, and jazz piano with Bill Peterson. His chamber works have been performed at such venues as The Dimenna Center and Spectrum (New York City), The Secret Theatre (Long Island City, NY), and Ishimori Hall (Tokyo, Japan) – including programs with Vox Novus, The Queens New Music Festival, and Tokyo to New York. Before attending FSU, Daniel earned an MM in composition from the University of Arkansas where he studied with Robert Mueller. Recent honors include recognition as a finalist in the 2014 BMI Student Composer Awards (for piano etude electronumbcomfy) and a nomination for Florida State University’s Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.
Sarah Van Dusen is a doctoral candidate in music education at the University of Colorado-Boulder. She earned a bachelor’s degree in music education from Indiana University and a master’s in horn performance from the University of Oregon. She has ten years of experience teaching general music, beginning band, and an assortment of other courses in the K-12 public school system. Her teaching experiences across five states have been diverse and have included working on the Navajo reservation and working in an immigrant community with 88% English language learners. Sarah is currently teaching general music methods courses at the University of Colorado and working on her dissertation. Her research interests include public policy and engaging diverse students in music education for a lifelong relationship with music.
Andersen Viana is a composer, music producer and a professor at Fundação Clóvis Salgado –Palácio das Artes in Belo Horizonte-Brazil. He has a Ph.D in Music Composition by Federal University of Bahia and lately he furthered his studies in other institutions in Brazil, Italy and Sweden such as Federal University of Minas Gerais, Reale Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna, Arts Academy of Rome, Accademia Chigiana di Siena and Royal University College of Music in Stockholm. He has received 25 composition awards in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, France, Italy, Spain and the USA. Up to the present he has composed 340 musical pieces for chamber, orchestra, choral, various ensembles and electronic instruments. Argentina, Belgium, Bulgaria, USA, France, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Italy, Nederlands, Portugal, Spain, The United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Russia, Swiss, Sweden.
Andrew Watts’ works, from chamber and symphonic music to multimedia and electro-acoustic, are actively performed throughout the US and Europe. His compositions have been premiered at world- renowned venues such as Ravinia, the MFA Boston, Jordan Hall, and the Holywell Music Room. This past year Mr. Watts has written for top musicians and ensembles including Tony Arnold, Séverine Ballon, and the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble. He is currently a graduate fellow at Stanford studying with Brian Ferneyhough and working towards a DMA in Composition. Mr. Watts received his master’s with distinction from Oxford and his bachelor’s with academic honors from NEC. In 2014 he attended the Wellesley Composers Conference; and during past summers he participated in the Etchings Festival, Fresh Inc. Festival, New Music on the Point, and AMF. In addition to a liberal arts education at IU’s Hutton Honors College, he has also taken economics and literature classes at Brown.
