Our new Con Edison Musicians’ Residency Composers-in-Residence have been announced. Eight composers will be in residence in four different cultural facilities for fall 2011 and spring 2012.  Now it’s time to introduce you to this year’s panel.

With recommendations from NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and the Brooklyn Council on the Arts, we assembled a panel of professional musicians, composers, and arts administrators.  Our space this year was generously donated by our friends at the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Their bios are below – and we thank them for their time, expertise and energy.

****************************************************
Alexandra Honigsberg performed with the New Music Orchestral Project at Carnegie Hall; Encompass New Opera Theatre premiering Gioia’s Un Racconto Fiorentino at Alice Tully (’00) and Ricky Ian Gordon’s Almost Heaven (’01); debuted Steven L. Rosenhaus’ Strange Loops (‘97), Rite of Summer (Terry Riley’s In C with Jed Distler, ‘11), Women’s Work (’11), and NCC’s new music series (’07), works by Beth Anderson and Charlie Griffin; also with The Don’t Quit Your Day Job Players (’95-’00) and Japanese jazz quintet Robin’s Egg Blue (’10-’11). A native New Yorker, graduate of Manhattan School of Music, she teaches at St. John’s University.

Kevin James is a composer, trombonist, educator and thinker. He’s won some awards and grants and commissions from a goodly number of organizations. He feels privileged when great musicians play his music and loves to have the chance to sit among great musicians to play his horn. Now and then his music gets played on the radio. (Which is cool.)  He loves to try new things and to work with the human voice in its “natural state”. You may know him from his work on The Portraits Project, which is a 90-minute multimedia “opera-lingua” on the theme of homelessness; or Sadako: Prayers for Peace, a 35 minute cantata; or his newest series of works from the Dialogues with Disappearing Languages project based on nearly extinct languages from around the world. Kevin holds advanced degrees in music performance, philosophy and religion, and music composition from DePauw University and Brooklyn College.

Jonah Nigh is a development officer at Columbia University’s School of the Arts and Miller Theatre where he manages a portfolio of major gift prospects as well as the Annual Fund campaigns for both the school and the theater.  Nigh previously served as assistant director of development for OPERA America, artist representative for Elsie Management, the program development associate for the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts of Massachusetts, and the acting concert coordinator for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.   A former opera singer, Nigh earned his B.M. and M.M. in vocal performance from Lawrence University and New England Conservatory.

Matt Schickele (Con Edison Composer in Residence, Flushing Town Hall, ’09) is a composer and songwriter.  His concert music has been performed by the Da Capo Chamber Players, the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, among others. As a songwriter his releases include The Badger Game, April/November, Cities Filled With Lights, and he is a founding member of the M Shanghai String Band. He is a graduate of Bard College, where he studied composition with Joan Tower. He also co-hosts the podcast,  Scopes Monkey Choir.

Kathleen Supové has won acclaim and recognition everywhere for her fierce performances of music by today’s composers and for being at the forefront of innovation and experimentation with concert presentation. Her ongoing solo project is The Exploding Piano; she performs regularly in New York and elsewhere, at concert, theatrical, university, conservatory and club spaces. A Yamaha Artist, she has commissioned a large body of repertoire for piano + digital media. In addition, she is also a member of the groups Doctor Nerve and The Susie Ibarra Quartet. She also curates a music series, Music With A View, at the Flea Theater in Tribeca.