We are delighted to announce the panelists for the 2015-16 EtM Con Edison Composers’ Residency. Panels took place in late June. We had a record number of applicants this year – 93 – more than double from previous years! The quality of the applicants was extremely high and the panelists had some tough decisions to make. Thanks to each of these distinguished individuals in the music field for their expertise in selecting the five resident composers for the coming year.

 

Annie Gosfield

Hailed as “a star of the downtown scene” by the New Yorker, Annie Gosfield is a composer and keyboardist based in New York City. Her work explores the inherent beauty of non-musical sounds, often combining electronics with acoustic instruments. Annie has created new works in close collaboration with Joan Jeanrenaud, Lisa Moore, Blair McMillen, Kathleen Supové, Felix Fan, The JACK Quartet, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Her music has been performed at Warsaw Autumn, the Bang on a Can Marathon, MATA, ISCM, the Venice Biennale, OtherMinds Festival, Lincoln Center, Miller Theatre and The Kitchen. Gosfield was a 2012 fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. She has four solo releases on the Tzadik label, and writes frequently on the compositional process for the New York Times’ series “The Score.” Annie held the Darius Milhaud chair at Mills College, and has taught at Princeton University and CalArts.

 

Kento Iwasaki

Kento Iwasaki is a composer and koto performer. Commissioned for his intercultural voice and theatrical sensibilities, he creates with theater and music new mythologies that acts as a bridge to the lexicon of traditional arts. He was born in Tokyo, Japan and grew up in Champaign, IL; Ottawa; Princeton and Philadelphia before moving to New York City.  He studied koto with Satomi Fukami as part of an expenses-paid program by Columbia University and continues his koto studies with Yoko Reikano Kimura. Kento has received training in opera composition from Libby Larsen, John Corgliano and and William Bolcolm as part of the John Duffy Composers Institute. Kento received his B.A. in Music Composition at Temple University and his M.M. in Classical Composition at Manhattan School of Music. Previous composition teachers include Mark Jurcisin, Matthew Greenbaum and Richard Danielpour. Kento is currently developing portable operas that utilize traditional Japanese instruments.

 

Rio Sakairi

Rio Sakairi is an award-winning jazz producer who has served as the Artistic Director and the Director of Programming at The Jazz Gallery for the past 14 years. At The Jazz Gallery she is responsible for planning the season, booking artists, and cultivating artist relations. She has established herself as a leading expert in jazz programming, capturing the attention of such seasoned jazz experts as George Wein for her creative ideas, her understanding of new trends in jazz, her ability to uncover the most talented emerging jazz musicians, and her impeccable artistic standards. Rio has also produced sold out events for New Festival Productions, the Symphony Space, and the HarlemStage among others. She has produced her first CD, “HOME – Gift of Music” which has been released on Sunnyside Records in September 2012. Under her artistic leadership, The Jazz Gallery has come to be known as  “the most imaginatively booked jazz club in New York City” (NY Times) and was the recipient of 2014 & 2010 CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. Critics and colleagues agree that Rio’s programmatic directions have had an immensely important and lasting impact on the jazz scene today.

 

Robert Sirota

Composer Robert Sirota’s works have been performed by the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society, Sequitur, Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Left Bank Concert Society, Dinosaur Annex, the Chiara, American and Blair String Quartets, Ethel, The Peabody, Concord, and Webster Trios, and the Fischer Duo, and at the  Tanglewood, Aspen, Yellow Barn and Cooperstown festivals. Orchestral performances include the Seattle, Vermont, Virginia, East Texas, Lincoln (Neb), Meridian (Miss), New Haven, Greater Bridgeport, Oradea (Romania) and Saint Petersburg (Russia) symphonies, as well as conservatory orchestras of Oberlin, Peabody, Manhattan School of Music, Toronto, and Singapore. He has received composer grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the United States Information Agency, the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and the American Music Center.

 

Chesney Snow

Chesney is a Drama Desk award-winning New York based theatre artist, songwriter, musician and one of NYC’s premiere human beatbox/vocal percussionists and a pioneering figure in American beatbox culture. Currently working on the Broadway bound a Capella musical In Transit produced by Janet B. Rosen, directed by Tony Award winner Christopher Gattelli and written by Academy Award winner Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Russ Kaplan, Sara Wordsworth and James Allen-Ford. In Transit received the most award nominations of any Off-Broadway musical of the 2010-2011 season (including Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, Drama League, Tina, and Outer Critics Circle). In March of 2015 he co-headlined Carnegie Hall’s sold out concert Total Vocal alongside the father of contemporary a cappella Deke Sharon. Snow is also an accomplished songwriter most recently collaborating with Edyta Gorniak on her song “Your High” which became one of the hits of 2014 in Poland, reaching #1 on Radio Zet, one of Poland’s largest radio networks. The song also charted at #1 across Poland on numerous radio stations. In December of 2014 the song was recognized as the song of the year on Radio Zet. He is the executive producer and star of the feature music documentary American Beatboxer which was placed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Harvard University Hip Hop Archive collections.

 

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