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Welcome to Habitat: Home NYC! Habitat: Home is a nationwide community-building project powered by art. We reinvigorate communities across America by co-creating and sharing art about ‘home.’ Our events celebrate connection, empathy & diversity. Tonight’s show will intermingle music, poetry, theater, video, and dance made by local artists, to reflect on what ‘home’ means today. There will be no intermission. You are invited to enjoy free food and chat with artists and audience members at our reception after the performance!
Tonight’s program is web-streamed on the Habitat: Home Facebook page (facebook.com/habitathomeus) and is captioned at https://habitathome.us/captions.
Habitat: Home NYC is co-organized by Julia Barry, Dusty Francis, Dionne McClain- Freeney, and Rev. Adriene Thorne, and presented by Julia Barry Productions with collaborative materials by Nautilus Music-Theater.
Tonight’s Program:
“Climate Justice” by Beata Moon, inspired by interviews with children
Performed by St. Cecilia Children’s choir of St. Michael’s Church, conducted by Dusty Francis
The text for Climate Justice was inspired by the responses to the survey I asked the kids of the choir regarding their thoughts about climate change. This articulate group wrote about the urgency of the situation and the need to get more people involved to make change. My husband, David Jacoby, helped revise the text. –Beata Moon
Text/Lyrics:
We want change. We want justice. Climate change, climate justice.
Global warming is real. Shrinking glaciers are real. Extreme weather is real. 2x
You say you love us
Then why don’t you protect our future. Think of us, your children
Set your priorities straight!
We want change. We want justice. Climate change, climate justice.
It won’t be easy
But together we can do it.
There’s not much time left,
But if we act now, we’ll get through it.
We want change. We want justice. Climate change, climate justice.
We must not stop trying
To keep life on Earth from dying.
We must not stop.
Will you help us?!
“La Madre Triste (The Sad Mother)” (from Piececitos) by Joelle Wallach
Performed by St. Cecilia Children’s Choir of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church with Dusty Francis, conductor; Leonard Fu, violin; Sun Kyoung Min, cello; Beata Moon, piano; Carrie Quarquesso, soprano
While strings keen a contrapuntal lament, the sad mother croons a lullaby to the baby swaddled and swaying on her back. Her melody is a paraphrase of a 15th century Sephardic folksong, originally sung by Spanish Jews fleeing their own persecution. Intermittently, children sing along with the strings, echoes of hope and consolation.
Originally the middle movement of a larger work, Piececitos, “La Madre Triste” is a vivid musical meditation on motherhood, migration and exile based on poems by Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American to win a Nobel Prize in Literature. Set in the original Spanish, Piececitos’ five songs for voice, violin, cello and piano interweave Latin American dance rhythms with haunting melodies: lullabies and laments of a mother on her treacherous journey toward refuge.
La Madre Triste and Piececitos as a whole use traditional musical patterns and pre-existing quotations to blend or contrast with newly composed elements/ Folkloric wisdom, generational and cultural ties clash in a mother’s inner dialogue of hope, terror and love as she struggles toward refuge for her children.
Text/Lyrics:
Duerme, duerme, dueño mío / Sleep, sleep, my love
sin zozobra, sin temor / Without worry, without fear
aunque no se duerma mi alma / Although my soul can’t sleep
aunque no descanse yo. / Although I cannot rest.
Duerme, duerme y en la noche / Sleep, sleep and in the night
seas tú menos rumor / May your murmuring be as soft
que la hoja de la hierba / As a whisper of grass
que la seda del vellón. / or the wool of a lamb.
Duerma en ti la carne mía / May my body find peace in you
mi zozobra, mi temblor. / My worries, my fears.
En ti ciérrense mis ojos: / In you may my eyes close:
¡duerma en ti mi corazón! / And may my heart find rest in you!
Poem by Gabriella Mistral (composer’s translation)
“Connections” by Saúl Guanipa, composer; Rohan Bhargava, choreographer; Taylor Edelle Stuart, video designer
Performed by Taïs Szilagi, mezzo; Dudley Raine, IV, viola; Anna Pinault, dancer
Text/Lyrics:
I think for probably most of us home can be whatever we want it to be and we can make it up for ourselves and we might not necessarily have a specific place that we want to go back to.
The word “home” itself is kind of a safety blanket when you’re growing up, a place that you associate that with. But as you get older it’s less about that and more people and connections feel like home.
“The Labeler” by Esco Jouléy & Jay Zimmerman
Performed by Esco Jouléy as ONE
Video by Esco Jouléy & Jay Zimmerman
“She Was Warned” by Kala Pierson
Performed by Beata Moon, piano; Carrie Quarquesso, soprano
Based on historical text by Coretta Scott King & Mitch McConnell:
“She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, on silencing Senator Elizabeth Warren for reading Coretta Scott King’s description of racist power abuse by Jeff Sessions, which begins, “I write to express my sincere opposition”
I wrote She Was Warned in early 2017. It was the first piece I could finish after the 2016 election. In this piece I use two fragments of text. The first is Mitch McConnell’s statement, “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted” – his justification of why he silenced Elizabeth Warren during the confirmation hearings for Jeff Sessions, as Warren tried to read a letter from Coretta Scott King describing years of racist power abuses by Sessions. The second text fragment is the beginning of King’s letter: “I write to express my sincere opposition.” The piece is both about resistance and about embodying and amplifying another person’s intention – two forms of resisting silencing. –Kala Pierson
Text/Lyrics:
She she she she was she was warned,
she was warned,
she was warned
she was given,
was given an explanation
she was she was warned,
nevertheless,
she was nevertheless,
she was warned,
“I write to express my sincere opposition.”
“I write.”
“I write.”
I
nevertheless,
she
I
I
she
I
she
I
I
I
“Rage” by Victoria Bond
Performed by Beata Moon, piano
Originally conceived as a ballet and commissioned by the Lake Erie Ballet, Rage is about the turbulent emotions of an abusive relationship. Choreographer Michael Satinoff had asked me to write a pas de deux for two dancers in his company, and originally I set out to write something romantic and lovely. However, as daily headlines screamed out about tortured relationships, my little pas de duex turned into an impassioned cry against violence. It portrays a couple imprisoned in a vicious cycle of domination and abuse. First looking at the scene from the position of the perpetrator and then from the viewpoint of the abused, the music alternates between these two extremes. –Victoria Bond
“Seven Minutes from the Sun” by Julia Barry, composer, and Johanna V. Hayes, choreographer; inspired by interviews with Sevan K. Greene, Johanna V. Hayes & Taïs Szilagi
Performed by Taïs Szilagi, mezzo; Sevan K. Greene, tenor; Napat Mingkwanyuen, piano; Leonard Fu, violin; Johanna V. Hayes and Austin Silavong, dancers; Video footage by Julia Barry & Johanna V. Hayes; Video editing by Johanna V. Hayes
“Seven Minutes from the Sun” is inspired by the poem, “Snow on the Desert” by Agha Shahid Ali. We were moved by Ali’s ability to intertwine political context, environmental history, and personal story. This poem motivated us to explore themes of embodied memory and trauma, how the past informs the present, the relationship between personal and political, and our own histories. The creation process brought us endless discussions, unanswered questions, and inquiries. What is the role of individual or generational memory? How does the act of recollecting impact our perception of what has happened? What does this mean for how we understand and act on personal, communal, and global histories?
The title of this work comes from a line in Ali’s poem, “Each ray of sunshine is seven minutes old… / So when I look at the sky, I see the past”. Using a three-movement structure, we juxtaposed three separate memories in a natural depiction of how our present moment is made of the past. To root our piece in this theme, we used musical and visual moments (melodies, types of sounds, colors, visual moments) that cycle, return, and overlap. We hope this piece provides an emotional, visceral acknowledgement of how we do not go untouched in this world. The people, places, and moments we have either come into contact with or that those before us have, continue to shape this very moment.
Text/Lyrics:
Snow on the Desert poem by Agha Shahid Ali
“Each ray of sunshine is seven minutes old,”
Serge told me in New York one December night.
“So when I look at the sky, I see the past?”
“Yes, Yes,” he said. “especially on a clear day.”
On January 19, 1987,
as I very early in the morning
drove my sister to Tucson International,
suddenly on Alvernon and 22nd Street
the sliding doors of the fog were opened,
and the snow, which had fallen all night, now
sun-dazzled, blinded us, the earth whitened
out, as if by cocaine, the desert’s plants,
its mineral-hard colors extinguished,
wine frozen in the veins of the cactus.
* * *
The Desert Smells Like Rain: in it I read:
The syrup from which sacred wine is made
is extracted from the saguaros each
summer. The Papagos place it in jars,
where the last of it softens, then darkens
into a color of blood though it tastes
strangely sweet, almost white, like a dry wine.
As I tell Sameetah this, we are still
seven miles away. “And you know the flowers
of the saguaros bloom only at night?”
We are driving slowly, the road is glass.
“Imagine where we are was a sea once.
Just imagine!” The sky is relentlessly
sapphire, and the past is happening quickly:
the saguaros have opened themselves, stretched
out their arms to rays millions of years old,
in each ray a secret of the planet’s
origin, the rays hurting each cactus
into memory, a human memory
for they are human, the Papagos say:
not only because they have arms and veins
and secrets. But because they too are a tribe,
vulnerable to massacre. “It is like
the end, perhaps the beginning of the world,”
Sameetah says, staring at their snow-sleeved
arms. And we are driving by the ocean
that evaporated here, by its shores,
the past now happening so quickly that each
stoplight hurts us into memory, the sky
taking rapid notes on us as we turn
at Tucson Boulevard and drive into
the airport, and I realize that the earth
is thawing from longing into longing and
that we are being forgotten by those arms.
* * *
At the airport I stared after her plane
till the window was
again a mirror.
As I drove back to the foothills, the fog
shut its doors behind me on Alvernon,
and I breathed the dried seas
the earth had lost,
their forsaken shores. And I remembered
another moment that refers only
to itself:
in New Delhi one night
as Begum Akhtar sang, the lights went out.
It was perhaps during the Bangladesh War,
perhaps there were sirens,
air-raid warnings.
But the audience, hushed, did not stir.
The microphone was dead, but she went on
singing, and her voice
was coming from far
away, as if she had already died.
And just before the lights did flood her
again, melting the frost
of her diamond
into rays, it was, like this turning dark
of fog, a moment when only a lost sea
can be heard, a time
to recollect
every shadow, everything the earth was losing,
a time to think of everything the earth
and I had lost, of all
that I would lose,
of all that I was losing.
Seven Minutes from the Sun (Lyrics)
1.Depart
I awoke from a dream, into a dream.
The yellow light of morning, morning filled your window.
(What becomes memory, was once now. Now!)
The curtains, your cotton sheets, our hair — everything, everything, everything — seemed to lift up in the honeycomb light.
(What is now, we will soon remember.)
Still waking up, I ask you
I ask you why that truck is here, my father closing the door–
(Time nests inside of memory, like heat inside of fire.)
Our faces in the window (our faces mirrored there),
the engine roaring, (roaring), roaring,
the engine roaring, (roaring), fading (fading) away.
We sat in the golden haze,
still,
as the moment turned to amber.
2.Inhabit
My ancestors lived in the forest, with light and sap and stone.
In this city, I walk fast, buildings taller than trees, piercing the sky.
Decorated with song and spice and laughter, my family turned suffering into their home.
Jokes, amulets of safety; stories so you’re never alone.
Now, I walk fast in this city, the forest that once was here now deep in the ground, under my feet.
All summer, the sun shears off of skyscraper metal and glass,
pressing ancient memories into my skin.
A million stories deep in my veins, my legs dance and my arms wave like fire!
My heart, like the wind, murmurs these old words
And they fall out of my mouth, like the furthest stars streaking gold across the sky,
still, from their future, sending sparks into our night.
3.Transcend
During our escape through the desert, I saw the sky in a way I never had before. Completely flooded in stars, completely flooded in stars. (Stars! Completely flooded in stars, completely flooded in stars!)
Ahhhh
No moon. No clouds. It was, and still is, the most remarkable thing I have ever seen in my life.
The most remarkable thing
The most remarkable
Ahhhh
“Orogeny” by Joseph N. Rubinstein, composer; Melanie Ramos, choreographer
Performed by Beata Moon, piano; Melanie Ramos, dancer
The word “orogeny” refers to the process by which the earth forms mountain ranges. We wanted this work to convey a sense of earth’s ancient history and it’s slow but inexorable change.
“Earth That I Love” by Jinhee Han, composer; Meredith Entrop, visual artist & musician; Melisa Tien, lyricist
Performed by Esteban Suero, tenor; Meredith Entrop, narration/percussion; Jihwon Na, cello (Oct 19); Josh Lang, Baritone Saxophone (Oct 20); Napat Mingkwanyuen, piano; Melisa Tien, Wooden Chimes; Video by Moo Jae
Based on the poem “No matter what is said” by Melisa Tien, this piece for male vocal, bass trombone, percussionist/narrator and piano with video projection is inspired by a theme of climate change. To express the poem equally by four people, each performer interacts with the lyrics, spoken words, various experimental gestures and timbres. The idea of chromatic scale A, the lowest key of the piano infers foundation of our earth. Moreover, combination of pentatonic, A-phrygian mode, and whole tone scale presents similarity, but changes from the past to the future of our places, which has intention to remind recognition of climate changes that we may not expect the same weather, seasons, natures as usual by several reasons, which speak a warning of global warming, and awareness of our wounded environments on daily basis. — Jinhee Han
You may have noticed an object and writing supplies at the entry to the performance space. The performances this evening touch on themes of home, community, and the social and environmental issues that allow them to flourish/must be addressed if they are to flourish. As you experience the performances, we invite you to set an intention for bettering the world–a wish for a a place, person, or community you love–to write that intention on a strip of paper and tie it to the object as you leave here tonight. The piece will evolve as a result of collective action, reflecting the individual and collective nature of building community. In this effort, each voice matters. And it is only together that we can build a better world. — Meredith Entrop
Text/Lyrics:
No matter what is said,
it is earth that I love–
dark soil between
my fingers, my toes.
Even when I sleep,
beneath my bed
the cool dirt hums.
Mmm mm mmmm.
Mmm mm mmmm.
No matter what is said,
it is rain thatI love–
wet, falling upon
my eyebrows, my
ears.
Even when I dream,
against my roof
the downpour sings.
Ahhh ahh ahhhh.
Ahhh ahh ahhhh.
No matter no matter what is said,
it is night that I love–
skies starless above
my body, my soul.
Even when I wake,
inside my heart
the deep blue calls.
Ohhh ohh ohhhh.
Ohhh ohh ohhhh.
“Going Home” by Dionne McClain-Freeney, composer & Allison Sniffin, composer
Performed by Dionne McClain-Freeney, piano & vocal soloist; Allison Sniffin (Oct 19) / Billy Easterling (Oct 20), organ; Carrie Quarquesso, soprano; Momoyo Arai (Saturday) / Gail Blache-Gill (Sunday), alto; Napat Mingkwanyuen, tenor; Alec Galambos (Saturday) / Nigel Sangster (Sunday), bass; First Presbyterian Church Band (Sunday only): Tyler Mashek, drums; Pam Jennett aka BAASIK, bass
Commissioned by Middle Collegiate Church for the New York Philharmonic’s The New World Initiative, this piece is based on “Largo” from Symphony for the New World by Antonin Dvorak.
Text/Lyrics:
Home! Home! Home! Home!
Going, going, going, going, going
Home, going home!
Going home, going home, yes I’m going home
Don’t know when I’ll get there, but I’m on my way.
Ir la casa!
Hui jia!
Ni kaeru!
Ren trez chez moi!
Alawda eela!
Don’t care how long it takes or what I must do
Come what may, I’ll get there, pressing my way through.
Sun or rain, joy or pain, yes I’m going home.
Darkest night, dawn’s soft light, yes I’m going home.
I’m goin’ home (I’m goin’ home)
I’m goin’ home (I’m goin’ home)
You can’t stop me (I’m goin’ home)
I’m goin’ home (I’m goin’ home)
There’s no border (I’m goin’ home)
There’s no order (I’m goin’ home)
You can build a wall (I’m goin’ home)
But it will fall (I’m goin’ home)
Yes! (Yes!)
Yes! (Yes!)
Yes! (Yes!)
Yes! (Yes!)
Yes! (Yes!)
Darkest night, dawn’s soft light, yes I’m going (I’m going, I’m going) home.
Bios (in alphabetical order):
Momoyo Arai is Musical theater actress who’s from Japan. She played the title role at the youth musical theater company on the debut stage when she was 14. She came to New York City when she was 18. Learned Jazz, Hiphop, Salsa, Tap, Contemporary dance at Peridance Capezio Center. Now, She has belonged to Jerriese Johnson Gospel Choir. In this summer, she made her Off-broadway debut as a “Humanity’s Child” original cast.
Julia Barry (Habitat: Home NYC organizer) creates music for concert, theater, dance, film, and multi-media projects. She is a composer in residence at the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop, and a recent recipient of the New York Women Composers Seed Money Grant, Puffin West Grant, Pollination Project, and Brooklyn Arts Council’s Brooklyn Arts Fund Grant for Habitat: Home. She is active in the NY arts scene, performing with groups from indie bands to classical choirs, and has been selected for numerous residencies and programs including the New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio, Art-a-Hack, Chalk Hill, and VCCA. She enjoys partnering on new projects with groups such as the New York City Master Chorale and KC VITAs, and is especially interested in collaborative and socially impactful work. Her studio, Julia Barry Productions, provides music and digital services for artists, caretakers, and progressives. More information is at http://juliabarry.com and http://juliabarryproductions.com.
BAASSIK (aka Giam) is a (mostly) a self-taught bass guitarist, music producer, teaching artist, speaker, international music ambassador, and music gear-head. Born in NYC, she learned to play various instruments in elementary and junior high school. In high school, she taught herself bass guitar by listening to the radio or her massive music collection. It wasn’t until adulthood that she took it seriously and started gigging locally, then internationally, sharing her love of music for anyone who would listen.
Using her bass guitar, Maschine Mikro 2 (Native Instruments), Ableton 9 lite (Novation), Logic X (Apple) or her many pedals, BAASSIK creates “mynd-scapes” [mind scapes], for the listener as she hears…feels it. “Making grooves…”, as she calls her “beats”, comes from her desire of self-expression while entertaining and educating others. Her mottos are “Make (th)em think.” BAASSIK (1990) “Keep it BAASSIK”! (1990)
Rohan Bhargava, born and raised in New Delhi India, holds a B.F.A in Dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He works for Greater Ridgewood Youth Council, Kizuna Dance, and 10 Hairy Legs in addition to serving as Artistic Director of Rovaco Dance Company. As a choreographer, Rohan has earned reputed awards and commissions from Mare Nostrum Elements, Mannes School of Music, Sam Houston State University, The Dance Gallery Festival, and CUNY Dance Initiative/Laguardia Community College. He has taught nationally in New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Texas as well as internationally in India in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore. (Learn more about his work at www.rovacodance.com)
Internationally acclaimed composer/conductor Victoria Bond’s compositions have been praised by the New York Times as “powerful, stylistically varied and technically demanding.” Bond’s opera Clara about Clara Schumann received its premiere and 11 performances at the Berlin Philharmonic Easter Festival in Germany in April, 2019. The German press wrote: “Victoria Bond gives each character a three-dimensional role, enriched with original musical colors.” Ms. Bond has composed eight operas, six ballets, two piano concertos and numerous orchestral, chamber, choral and keyboard compositions. She has been commissioned by American Opera Projects, the Houston and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras, Cleveland and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestras, Michigan Philharmonic, Cassatt String Quartet, Young People’s Chorus, American Ballet Theater, Pennsylvania Ballet and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. A new CD of her chamber works was recently released on the Naxos label, performed by members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Bond holds a Doctorate in orchestral conducting from The Juilliard School.
Emma Dickson (Photographer) currently works as a Development Officer at Weill Cornell Medicine. A non-profit storytelling professional, she has experience using media and public relations, fundraising, and photography to develop compelling narratives for mission-driven organizations in a broad-ranging array of fields, including medicine, performing arts, animal welfare, and politics. Emma holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Brown University, where she also studied Creative Nonfiction Writing. In her free time, she sings with and volunteers for the New York City Master Chorale.
Meredith Entrop is a landscape architect with Snøhetta, a collaborative trans-disciplinary design workshop, and has a background in writing, editing, illustration, and music. Her work is motivated by the belief in art and the design of the physical environment to elevate the way people think, feel, and interact in ways that strengthen a sense of connection to self, others, and the environment. As a landscape architect, Meredith has worked on a variety of proposals to reclaim industrial sites for people and wildlife, including Sidewalk Labs’ Toronto Waterfront, Ford Motor Company’s Dearborn campuses, and Pearl Brewery in San Antonio. She has collaborated as a vocalist and percussionist on other projects and is currently illustrating a children’s book.
Conductor and bass-baritone Dusty Francis (Habitat: Home NYC co-organizer) enjoys an active career as a performer, clinician, and educator in the New York metropolitan area and across the country. He currently serves as Principal Conductor of the New York City Master Chorale, Director of Choirs at Collegiate School, and Director of Children’s Choirs at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church. Recent seasons have included performances at esteemed venues such as Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, among others.
When not on the conducting podium, Francis can often be heard singing with some of the country’s finest professional choral ensembles, including the GRAMMY-nominated True Concord Voices & Orchestra, the Atlanta-based Skylark Vocal Ensemble, and the Manhattan Chorale. Recent solo engagements have spanned styles and periods ranging from Bach to Puccini and Schubert to Sondheim.
Francis holds the Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education from Xavier University in Cincinnati. He is a member of the American Choral Directors Association and the National Association for Music Education. A native of Ohio, he currently resides in Manhattan.
Leonard Fu, born in Kiel, Germany, began playing the violin at age seven after having begun to learn piano three years earlier. Only a year later he was accepted into the Pre-College program of the Hannover School of Music, and later the Hamburg School of Music, where his teachers were Lara Lev and Tanja Becker-Bender. He most recently finished his Undergraduate studies at New England Conservatory in the studio of Donald Weilerstein and is currently pursuing his Master’s degree in the same studio as well as serving as his Teaching Assistant.
Fu has played concerts all over Europe, Asia, and the US and performed as a soloist with prestigious orchestras such as the Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the NDR Radiophilharmonic Orchestra, and the Philharmonic orchestra Bremerhaven, under the batons of Alexander Shelley, Andrew Manze, i.a.
Amongst his many chamber music partners are Laurence Lesser, Kim Kashkashian, Donald and Vivian Weilerstein, Janine Jansen, Jörg Widmann, Tanja Becker-Bender, Jens-Peter Maintz, the Kuss quartet, Gregor Horsch, Thomas Riebl, and Amihai Grosz.
Over the past decade Fu has been laureate of the Postacchini, Lipizer, Tonali, and Joachim competitions and receives scholarships from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and the Richard and Dorothy Starling Foundation. He currently is playing on a 1680 Antonio Stradivari loan by the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben in Hamburg, Germany.
Alec Galambos is an NYC-based conductor, composer, and vocalist. After growing up on a steady diet of piano and choral music, he studied composition at Emory University and then moved to New York to pursue a M.M. degree in Composition and Film Scoring at NYU. Alec has since recorded scores and incidental music for independent features, documentaries, and shorts, and has contributed music and sound design to nationwide advertising campaigns and video games. His passion for vocal music has led him to create original works for KHORIKOS and the Greenwich Village Chamber Singers, as well as over a hundred vocal arrangements for ensembles across the country, ranging in scope from barbershop quartet to 250-singer choral army. His music has somehow ended up at a Film Festival in Croatia, at New York’s Merkin and Carnegie Halls and Galapagos Art Space, and on a baseball field with Maestro Itzhak Perlman conducting. He has served as KHORIKOS’s Principal Conductor since 2016, leading the ensemble in performances across the US and Eastern Europe.
Sevan K. Greene — New York: Lortel Award‐Winning Betrayed (Culture Project, LATW, Kennedy Center, PBS), Dead are My People (NYTW/NOOR), Bunty Berman Presents, Betty Shamieh’s The Strangest (HERE), Aftermath (NYTW), Les Enfants des Paris (NYMF), Mapquest (Prospect Theater Company), FringeNYC’s hit Perez Hilton Saves the Universe…. London: Scenes from 68 Years (Arcola), bi (Arcola), Maroon (Mosaic), Remember, Remember (Park Theatre), TV/Film: “Madame Secretary,” The Dictator, “Blue Bloods,” “Damages,” “M.O.N.Y.” . Regional includes: world premiere of Language Rooms at the Wilma Theatre, Evita, City of Angels, Into the Woods, Company. www.sevangreene.com
Saúl Guanipa is a NYC based composer, producer, and a Berklee College of Music graduate. His music has been widely used in film trailers, commercial advertising, and television promos for networks such as HBO, Showtime, Netflix, ABC, and CNN. In 2018 Saúl won both the PMA Mark Award and the Music + Sound Award for best music use in online digital advertising. Currently he is a staff composer at VideoHelper Music + Sound Design Library and a resident composer for the Rovaco Dance Company. Saúl is originally from Caracas, Venezuela.
Award-winner musician, Jinhee Han, started playing the piano at age 4 and composing in her late teens. Han’s promising musical gift earned her fulltime scholarships for both her bachelor and masters degrees in music composition and graduated with Cum Laude, at HanYang University in Seoul, Korea. After, she earned Professional Study Diploma in Music Composition with Robert Cuckson as a scholarship recipient from The New School, Mannes College, May, 2015.
Throughout her career, Han has had several original concert works premiere including orchestra pieces in her hometown of Seoul, Korea, Israel, Ukraine, Kosova, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Texas, Connecticut, Los Angeles, New Jersey and New York.
In her most recent notable achievement, Han’s music score of ‘Ya-Li Ya-Li Ya-la Shung’ for soprano and flute is published by Diaphonia Edition in Italy. Yaygara for trumpet solo has been published for AS I AM by women composers on CD by trumpeter, Kate Amrine. Recently, Han has been selected a winning composer as a guest artist at Nief-Norf Summer Festival 2018. Also, her selected works have been performed at several festivals and workshop such as TINGUJT Flute Sound Festival 2019, Colourscape festival 2019, Space City New Music Festival2017, Musica per Archi 2017, Women Composers Festival of Hartford 2016-2017, Emerging composers’ workshop by Groundswell2017, and Vox Faminae 3rd Edition 2016. Her works have been performed at major venues in Seoul, Europe, and the US. In New York including Lefrack Concert Hall, the Dimenna Center, National Opera center, Areté Venue Gallery, and Barge Music.
Since 2015, she serves as Founder/Director for Asian Women Composers Association in New York City, where she collaborates with a variety of talented musicians such as Lilac94, The Half Moon Project, Concrete Timbre, Cobalt, and so on, from various countries. Also, she has joined as an active member of New York Composers’ Circle.
Johanna V. Hayes is a dancer and choreographer for both stage and film. She has rooted her career in floor work, modern and contemporary styles, somatics, improvisation and house. Her formal training includes graduating from Interlochen Arts Academy, attending Lines Ballet Training Program, and receiving her Bachelors in Dance from Bates College. In 2018, as Junior in college, she was awarded the Philips Fellowship which funded her studies abroad in Europe. There she studied how different contemporary techniques affect relationship to self, place, and community. This research gave way to her Thesis Words into Action: An Investigation of Dance Practice as Tool to Implement Social Theory. As a dancer she has performed in the works of Claudia Lavista, Omar Carrum, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Trisha Brown, Dante Brown, Julie Fox, James Graham, Maurya Kerr, and Roberto Forleo. Her curiosity in choreography has lead her to both the stage and screen. Her work has been awarded by the American College Dance Association and also commissioned by companies in New York State. She currently works as a freelance dancer and choreographer in the New York City area.
Esco Jouléy is an actor, singer, clown, movement artist and creator originally from Washington DC. Credits include: Bravo- In A Man’s World, ABC Showcase, Interstate (Carly), Runaways (Esco), Galatea (Chorus), The Demise (Magic Theater Player), Beowolf (Warrior), Marisol (Angel), Girl Shakes Loose (Luc). Esco would like to give a very special thanks to their family and the Habitat Home team. Website: escojouley.com Insta: @escojouley
Josh Lang is a saxophonist who lives in Brooklyn. He studied under Dr. Jonathan Bergeron at Northern Arizona University and has performed across the United States and in Germany and Poland. He maintains regular appointments with Cobalt Quartet, Convectus Quartet, & the New York Wind Orchestra, and he performs & records new works by composers from the Manhattan School of Music, New York University, Asian Women Composers Association NYC, Long Island Composers’ Alliance, & New York Composers Circle. He recently finished the debut run of a new activist musical by Lauren Hlubny (director) and Thomas Giles (composer) called Thoughts & Prayers.
Josh has also done quite of bit of engraving and arranging. Some notable highlights would include his editions of Zdeněk Lukáš’ works for saxophone quartet and his editorial work on a 15-song children’s musical, The Grouch and the Love Bug, for which he did more than just arrange and engrave: he also harmonized, orchestrated, & produced backing tracks.
Dionne McClain-Freeney (Habitat: Home NYC co-organizer), pianist, composer, lyricist, choral and musical director, arranger, singer and teaching artist’s credits include accompaniment in some of New York’s most beloved churches, appearances here and abroad, including Joe’s Pub, and off-Broadway musical direction. Her award-winning compositions and arrangements (New York Philharmonic, NYMF, GLAAD Media Award nominee) include “The Harriet Holland Social Club Presents the 84th Annual Star-Burst Cotillion in the Grand Ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel”(music and lyrics; play by Colette Robert), “Going Home: A Movement of Voices” (Allison Sniffin, co-composer), “The Movie Star and The Mammy,” (music; book and lyrics by Bil Wright), “The Sugar Hill Sisters” (music; book and lyrics by Bil Wright), and “This One Girl’s Story” (music and lyrics; book by Bil Wright). Dionne has also provided arrangements and musical direction for Theater Breaking Through Barriers and Piper Theatre. She’s a composer in the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop.
Sun Kyoung Min is a cellist, has earned Bachelor of Music degree at Mannes School of Music and currently a candidate for the Master of Music degree at Mannes and a President’s Scholarship recipient under Metropolitan Opera Orchestra’s principal cellist Rafael Figueroa. She is a cellist with broad musical interests. An avid chamber musician, she is the winner of 2018 Chamber Music Award at International Academy of Music in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana. Furthermore, she is highly passionate towards new music and Avant-Garde scene. Appearances at New York City’s experimental music venue The Stone, performing new music and contemporary/free improvisations along with the premiere of Anthony Coleman’s Diastasis (2019). She will be giving all-contemporary music recital in upcoming December with dear contemporary music lover colleagues.
She has won first prize at New York Artists International Competition and finalist at Mannes Concerto Competition, advanced from the low string/harp division. She has performed in many music venues such as Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Teatro Alfieri and much more. Festival experiences include Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival and International Academy of
Music in Italy, with the support of generous scholarships. She plays with Dante Baldoni 1899.
Napat Mingkwanyuen is a singer, pianist and vocal coach based in New York City. He has performed lead roles in many musicals and operas including Tony from West Side Story, Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid and Raul from The Phantom of the Opera, The Dancing Master from Ariadne auf Naxos, Ferrando from Così fan tutte, Eisenstein from Die Fledermaus, King Oberon from The Fairy Queen, Monostatos from The Magic Flute, Mr. Keen from The English Cat, Souchong from The Land of Smile. Moreover, he has sung in many major concerts as a soloist with the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, Chulalongkorn University Symphony Orchestra and Mahidol University Pop Orchestra. He also has performed with many prestigious singing groups, for instance, Voices of Liberty, which performs at Disneyworld in Florida, The Manhattan Chorale, which often performs at Carnegie Hall as well as St. Bartholomew’s Choir in New York City.
As a pianist, he has collaborated with many theatres and opera companies such as Red House Theatre, The Bronx Opera, Canterbury Summer Theatre, The Bennati Group NYC and Education Through Music. Napat received his Master of Music in Vocal Arts at the Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California.
A versatile musician acclaimed for her expressivity and sincerity, Beata Moon continues to reach audiences through her many-faceted roles as composer, pianist and educator. Moon graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree from the Juilliard School where she was a student of Adele Marcus. The last twenty years have seen Moon produce works in a variety of genres, including solo instrumental, chamber and voice. Her four CDs of original music were enthusiastically received by press and public alike and continue to be broadcast and performed throughout the world. Reviewer Andrew Druckenbrod of Gramophone magazine wrote, “Moon writes compelling music that is utterly sincere…” She has created and performed interactive concerts for children for Musica Reginae, a classical music collective in New York City. Moon also works as a teaching artist for Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center Education, the New York Philharmonic and Marquis Studios where she has led workshops and designed curriculums tailored for students of various backgrounds. Through her various roles as an educator, performer and composer, Moon fulfills her wish to work musically with people of all ages and backgrounds. She believes that creating and making music (not just listening to music) can be an invigorating way to process life’s varied experiences.
Highly motivated by New York City, cellist Jihwon Na, has since performed as in various genres including baroque, classical, jazz, new music, and collaborative art performance. She has performed at renowned halls including Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium Perelman Stage, Weill Recital Hall, Lincoln Center Alice Tully Hall, Kaufman Music Center, Merkin Concert Hall, Consulate-General of Poland NYC, Symphony Space, New York City Center, The Hollows, Industry City, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery, Morgan Library, Arnhold Hall Glass Box Performance Space, Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall, Ernst C. Stiefel Concert Hall, University Center John L. Tishman Auditorium, and John Goldmark Hall. She has played as a principal cellist of Ensemble 212, Regina Opera, Secret Opera, Mannes American Composer Ensemble, and Mannes Orchestra. She joined as an artist-in-residence at The Hollows.
She received Bachelor and Master of Music degree from Mannes, where she is pursuing Professional Study Diploma with the recipient of a merit scholarship and Goldsmith Foundation Award. In the spring of 2019, she performed in Ravel series stages and “double-bows’ solo piece” written by Yifan Guo. In addition to her performance, Jihwon is also committed to teaching. She is currently on the faculty of Park Conservatory and Tone Academy of Music. Her interests include photography, traveling, and nature.
Kala Pierson‘s music is vivid, full-throated, and rooted in the joy and urgency of communication. Whether writing boundary-pushing music for The Crossing and American Opera Projects, installing audio in an abandoned fortress, or performing endurance art at the Guggenheim Museum, she works from her own meditative and sensory/sensual experience, producing deeply embodied music that challenges while luxuriating in the performers’ best qualities.
Kala’s music has been performed in 35 countries on six continents, widely awarded and commissioned, and published by Universal Edition. Her music’s “seductive textures and angular harmonies” (Washington Post) build into “massive chords throwing out a wall of sound, like a modern-day Gabrieli” (San Francisco Classical Voice), and her focus on documentary and culturally resonant subject matter leads to works of “marvellous political power” (Louis Andriessen).
She’s held season-long composer residencies with American Opera Projects, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and San Francisco Choral Artists. Recently, she’s been the featured guest composer of Truman State University’s New Horizons Festival; a resident at Yaddo, MacDowell, the Britten-Pears Foundation, and the Banff Centre’s Leighton Artists Colony; and a Big Sky Choral Initiative Composer Fellow with The Crossing.
Kala’s awards include those from the Mauricio Kagel International Composition Competition; New Music USA; American Composers Forum; Meet the Composer; ASCAP; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; VocalEssence; Dale Warland’s Choral adVentures; the Gregg Smith Biennial Composition Prize; the 2016 GALA Choruses consortium commission from fifteen U.S. choral groups; and the Austrian, German, Serbian, and Swedish ministries of culture. Her sound work has been heard in the International Computer Music Conference (USA), Musica Viva (Portugal), Contemporanea/Citta di Udine (Italy), International Congress of Art and Technology (Brazil), SEAMUS National (USA).
Born in 1977, she studied at Eastman School of Music and at Bard College at Simon’s Rock. She lives in Philadelphia with her spouses and son. Connect with her at kalapierson.com.
Anna Pinault grew up in Minnesota and started her dance training with hip hop and street styles. After taking her first modern dance class at 12, she fell in love and began to explore the world of classical dance. She trained at TU Dance Center throughout high school and moved to New York City following graduation. Anna practices many dance styles, including ballet, Horton, Graham, house, contemporary, and dance theatre. She has also danced works by a diverse range of choreographers, including Ronald K. Brown, Uri Sands, Catherine Cabeen, Morgan Bobrow-Williams, and Gabe Katz. Anna currently dances with Mobilized Voices and Rovaco Dance Company, in addition to creating work as a freelance artist.
Carrie Quarquesso spends her days fostering the worship and liturgical arts programming at The Riverside Church, and her evenings steeped in music. She holds a degree in vocal performance from the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland, where she studied under internationally-acclaimed soprano Ah Young Hong. At Peabody, Carrie earned the Azalia H. Thomas prize in Music Theory and the Charles M. Eaton prize in Performance. Currently, she is a passionate member of Inspire: A Choir for Unity, and Florileguim. She is also a frequent guest performer for the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop showcases. She excels in many styles, with over a decade of professional choral, musical theater, and sacred music experience, from Bach’s Mass in B Minor (soprano soloist, Concert Artists of Baltimore), to Britten’s Folk Songs (guest artist, Hilltop Music Collective). Her favorite theatrical roles have included Mozart’s Die Entfürung (Blonde), Sondheim’s Into the Woods (Rapunzel), and notably, Menotti’s The Telephone (Lucy), which was performed in commemoration, in the year of the composer’s death, and reprised on the 5th anniversary. Her artistry is driven by authentic storytelling, and she is known for her captivating and honest presentation. She is continually involved in preparing benefit concerts with colleagues in partnership with charitable organizations, with the belief that music is a powerful instrument for social progress, and deepens our understanding of humanity and the divine.
Dudley Raine, IV is a New-York based violist from Lynchburg, Virginia. He has performed in Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall and has played with American Ballet Theatre, New England Symphonic Ensemble and as the resident violist at Calvary Church. Dudley is currently pursuing a master’s at Manhattan School of Music.
Melanie Ramos was born and raised in Miami, FL and attended New World School of the Arts High School. In 2014, she was a Young Arts finalist in the categories of modern dance and choreography. In 2018, she graduated Magna Cum Laude from SUNY Purchase College with a BFA in Dance. She has studied at Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Alonzo King Lines Ballet, Joffrey Ballet School, Hubbard Street and Ballet Hispanico. In 2015 and 2017, she was selected as a Young Choreographer presenting her own works at the Young Choreographer’s Festival. Following graduation, she received the 2018 Eryc Taylor Dance New Choreographer Grant as well as choreographing for the American Swiss Ballet Company, Frank Sinatra School of the Arts High school and the 2019 CounterPointe Series. She recently participated as a choreographer in the 2019 Jacob’s Pillow Choreography Fellows Program and is now a dancer with Ballet Hispanico’s second company, BHDos.
Joseph N. Rubinstein was born in Cleveland, OH, and spent his childhood there and in Newport News, VA. He currently lives in New York City. Joseph’s work is largely focused on texted and dramatic genres including opera, art song, and choral music. With an emphasis on emotional directness and vivid storytelling, his work often engages with questions about identity, interpersonal relationships, and the American experience. His music has been presented by organizations and individuals including Fort Worth Opera Festival, The Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater, Triad: The Boston Choral Collective, American Opera Projects, The Holy Cross Chamber Singers, The Secret Opera, bass-baritone Matthew Burns at the Spoleto Festival USA, North / South Consonance, Boston Metro Opera, C4, and the Young New Yorker’s Chorus. Recent and upcoming performances include the 2019 premiere of “Life’s Work” with the Cheah-Chan Duo, a workshop performance of a new choral piece as part of the Pacific Chorale’s 2019 “Choral Sketches” program, and a 2020 performance of “Summoning” with the Greater Cleveland Flute Society. Joseph and librettist Jason Kim are the recipients of an Opera Genesis Fellowship from American Opera Projects and The Hermitage Artist Colony for further developmental work on their opera “Legendary.” “Legendary” is scheduled to premiere with American Opera Projects in their 2021 / 2022 season. Select choral works by Joseph are available through See-A-Dot music publishing, and his 2009 choral piece “How She Went to Ireland” has been recorded by the C4 Ensemble on 4Tay Records. He studied music at Columbia University and The Juilliard School. He is a proud alumnus of the New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio and American Opera Projects’ “Composers and the Voice”.
Dr. Nigel Sangster, a native of Trinidad & Tobago, has earned his Doctor of Education degree from Rowan University in which his dissertation study focused on an investigation into the impact of the Arts on high school students. Apart from his academic accomplishments, Nigel has performed with The Mile Long Opera Company, New York City, in riveting performances of New York at 7 p.m. In the Spring of 2019, he was the soloist in a performance of Dubois’ Seven Last Words of Christ, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Jersey City. Nigel has performed the role of Porgy in Gerwin’s Porgy & Bess at the SHAGGA Cultural Arts Center. In addition, he has performed the role of Joseph in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, in Scarborough Tobago. Nigel is currently soloist with St. Paul’s Episcopal; Church of the Incarnation; and The Spirituals. Nigel has performed the National Anthem at several Graduation Commencement Ceremonies of Hunter College. Also to his credit, he has done ensemble performances with the New York Black Artists Ensemble in a production of Amahl and the Night Visitors; Lustig Dance Theatre; Hunter College Chorus; and Carnegie Hall performances with the Schiller Institute New York City Chorus and the Mark Howell Singers.
Austin Silavong graduated from Humboldt State University with a Bachelor of Science in Cellular-molecular biology. An emerging artist from Humboldt State University, a dancer and choreographer. He has been shaped into a well-rounded performer, who has worked closely with Sharon Butcher and Linda Maxwell in the performing arts. He has been featured in main stage productions at Humboldt State University for several years. Also, his piece “Through the Haze” and “Asunder” has been selected to represent Humboldt State University at the American College Dance Association Conference. Through the fusion of dance styles and movements, Austin has always been inspired and intrigued in the exploration of movements through kinesthetic teachings and demonstrating. His energy is described as luscious and dynamic.
Taylor Edelle Stuart (Video Designer) is a New York based filmmaker and theatre artist focused on the intersection of live performance and visual media, and how those physical and digital spheres may converge and coalesce. As a theatrical projection designer, recent credits include: Friendly’s Fire (The 14th St. Y), Intrusion (St. Luke’s Theatre), The Talmud (Associate – Target Margin Theatre), The Trade Federation… (IRT), Leni’s Last Lament (The Chain), Mumburger (Carnegie Stage), Parlor Tricks (Wild Project), Happy Happy Happy Happy (The Tank), Turing Test (NYC Fringe). Earlier this year, Taylor shot, directed, edited and installed a piece called Crushing Baby Animals, a gallery installation and performance art piece developed with The Plaxall Gallery, Long Island City Artists, and Dirt [Contained] Theatre Company.
Upcoming Projects: Video Design for Columbia University MFA Thesis Projects: Where do We Live? (Dir. Eugene Ma), and In the Blood (Dir. Ron Van Lieu) (Lenfest Center for the Arts); and video design for a new play formally based on Jules Verne’s From the Earth To Moon, and visually based on Georges Méliès film A Trip to the Moon. Taylor is also the lead video projection moderator for the TED Talks TED world theatre, she finished an internship at New Dramatists earlier this year, and was a 2018 Sundance | Youtube New Voices Lab Finalist.
Esteban Suero is a New York City actor, native to Miami, FL. Currently lives in Inwood, Manhattan with his 10 year old German Shepherd. When he is not performing Esteban is a photographer, an avid road-tripper and a singer-songwriter. Past credits include Lead Vocalist in the Rockin’ Road to Dublin National Tour (directed by Broadway’s Jeff Whiting) and Will Bloom in BIG FISH. Esteban is very excited to be part of this creative process! Always a joy to create. @estesuero @suerophotography
Taïs Szilagi is a NYC based crossover singer and actor. Operatic roles include Meg Paige (Falstaff), L’enfant (L’enfant et les sortilèges), Marchesa Melibea (Il viaggo a Reims) and Maddalena (Rigoletto) under the baton of Richard Barrett and the Brooklyn College Opera Theater. Additionally she has sung the Mistress of the Novices (Suor Angelica) with the International Masters Academy, covered the role of Nicklausse (Tales of Hoffmann) with the Martina Arroyo Foundation and sang in the Witches’ Chorus for LoftOpera’s critically acclaimed production of Macbeth. Off-Broadway credits include, Truffles: A Jazz Murder Mystery (Olga Donati) and Cause and Affliction (Taylor). No stranger to new music Tais has performed in the International Electro-Acoustic Music Festival, New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio, Make Music New York Festival, Shapeshifter Lab’s new music premiere series and sang in the New York premiere of Roger Ames’ bilingual opera En Mis Palabras. Tais is also a signed artist to Joma Music Inc. with pop single, “Flowers Falling”, which Norman Lebreicht called a, “cooler aria” (slippeddisc.com). Tais can be seen in Madonna’s music video, “Bitch I’m Madonna”, and as the principal actor in Joel Ortiz and Olive Louise’s music video, “Tears (Remix)”. Film credits include, The Mating Dome, Son of Sam: Hunt for a Killer, No Sleep til 40 and The Dead of Wynter (pilot). Tais currently studies under the tutelage of Mignon Dunn.
Shay Thomas (Habitat: Home NYC assistant) (they/them) is a queer theatre artist who specializes in dramaturgy and literary management. They graduated summa cum laude from Bowling Green State University where they studied theatre and psychology. Now, they work in theatrical publishing and licensing at Playscripts / Broadway Licensing! Outside of their office job, they maintain an active freelance career as a theatre maker and script reader. Catch them at local drag shows or chasing cheap theatre tickets. Insta: @shaythomas212.
Rev. Adriene Thorne (Habitat: Home NYC co-organizer) received her undergraduate degree from The State University of New York — Empire State College, concentrating in the field of Cultural Studies with a Creative Writing focus. She earned my Master of Divinity degree in Art, Religion, and Psychology from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif., where she was awarded the school’s highest honor. She completed post-graduate studies in pastoral care and counseling at The Blanton-Peale Institute, and she is certified as a life coach and disaster chaplain. Her background in the performing arts includes performance credits with The Dance Theatre of Harlem, The Metropolitan Opera, and the world famous Radio City Rockettes among others.
Melisa Tien is a playwright, lyricist, librettist, and producer. She is the author of the plays BEST LIFE, THE BOYD SHOW, YELLOW CARD RED CARD, FAMILIUM VULGARE, and REFRAIN. She is co-author of the music-theater works SWELL and MARY. SWELL was part of the HERE Summer Sublet Series in July 2019. BEST LIFE will be produced at JACK in March 2020. MARY will have a reading at New Dramatists in April 2020. A New Dramatists resident playwright, Melisa has also been a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Playwriting/Screenwriting, a resident of the MacDowell Colony and the Millay Colony, and a member of the 2010-2012 Women’s Project Lab. She has presented work at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, the Women Playwrights International Conference, and the National Asian American Theatre Conference and Festival. She teaches experimental theatrical writing at Sarah Lawrence College. BA, UCLA; MFA, Columbia University. Website: www.melisatien.com
Visionary composer Joelle Wallach writes music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo voices and choruses. Her String Quartet 1995 was the American Composers Alliance nominee for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize in Music. The New York Philharmonic Ensembles premiered her octet, From the Forest of Chimneys, written to celebrate their 10th anniversary; and the New York Choral Society commissioned her secular oratorio, Toward a Time of Renewal, for 200 voices and orchestra to commemorate their 35th Anniversary Season in Carnegie Hall. Wallach’s ballet, Glancing Below, a 1999 Juilliard Dance Theater showcase production originally commissioned by the Carlisle Project, was premiered in Philadelphia during the summer of 1994, entered the repertory of the Hartford Ballet in February 1995, and received its New York City premiere that June. As early as 1980 her choral work, On the Beach at Night Alone, won first prize in the Inter-American Music Awards.
Wallach grew up in Morocco, but makes her home in New York City, where she was born. Her early training in piano, voice, theory, bassoon and violin included study at the Juilliard Preparatory Division, and she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University respectively. In 1984 the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with John Corigliano, granted her its first doctorate in composition.
Dr. Wallach served as Visiting Professor of Composition at the College of Music of the University of North Texas, while continuing to present pre-concert lectures for the New York Philharmonic where she speaks on a broad range of musical subjects, bringing fresh insights to familiar works and opening doors to modern ones and to those less frequently heard.
Jay Alan Zimmerman is a composer, author, speaker, and visual music innovator. He’s been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, Playbill, Broadway World, Voice Of America, and NPR/WNYC/BBC Radio, and his inventive stories, songs, & scores for theatre, film, and dance have been seen at Lincoln Center, Times Square, London’s West End, Canada, and Europe — including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Paris Pompidou. After losing both home and hearing in the 9/11 tragedy, he transformed his story of resilience into the award-winning INCREDIBLY DEAF MUSICAL seen Off Broadway at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater and The Duke on 42nd Street. Then he turned a 30-foot tall window into an instrument for WINDOW MUSIC at the NY Academy of Medicine; morphed the LEMUR musical robots and 2-channel video into an orchestra in Brooklyn; combined EMMI musical bots with live singers at Spotify for ROBOTICUS; and integrated Broadway singers into projections of live frequency analysis for ART/SONG at chashama Times Square. Dance scores include the aerial works I’M KILLING MYSELF, SAFER, and THE SUNLIGHT ZONE as well as many works with choreographer Evann Siebens including THE LAST LEAF (Best Score, First Run Festival) and DO NOT CALL IT FIXITY (Special Music Award, Grand Prix International Video Danse Festival and selected North American film in the MOMA retrospective, Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris.) In addition, Jay created and directed the award-winning short film musicals PAWNS and LOVE BURNS, composed over 30 children’s songs commissioned by Mondo Music and Warner/Chappell, and scored the plays BOOTH and OUR BRUTUS, which were both Fringe First Award winners at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and had New York and London productions. Every year he debuts a new holiday song at Lincoln Center for his NAUGHTY & NICE HOLIDAY SONGBOOK—now available on Amazon. Most recently he developed the SETS MUSIC curriculum for the Deaf at Teacher’s College/Columbia University, debuted his play COMFORT PET with Fault Line Theatre, and created the SEEING MUSIC visualizers with Google Creative Labs.
Thank You’s:
First, thanks to all our wonderful artists and performers for helping Habitat: Home NYC come to life! Please come on up here and take a bow! We want to recognize how much time, talent, thought, and heart went into the works you made. Congratulations and thank you for being a part of this!
Thanks to HLAA, Hands On, RAICES, SURJ NYC, Monthly Music Hackathon, ThoughtWorks/Art-a-Hack, Working Theater, Rattlestick Theater, BRIC, 52nd St Project, Sarah Lawrence College, The New School, Councilman Brad Lander’s digital team, and New Sanctuary Coalition for spreading the word online.
We also are appreciative of event press published by BKLYNER, BroadwayWorld, Playbill, and Fractured Atlas (Member Spotlight).
Thanks to food donors Silver Moon Bakery and Concord Market, and our InstaCart shoppers.
We are so grateful for the help of staff of St. Michael’s Church and the First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, including Mother Kate, John Cantrell, Patty Allen, John Stickney, Anne Solages, Victor Forde, Jeremy Epstein, Ahmed Mahmoud, Chris Neuner, and our wonderful security guards, as well as to Middle Collegiate Church for giving us meeting space.
We are also grateful to our documentation artists, Brian Mountford (Video), Saúl Guanipa (Audio), Attis Clopton (Photography), and Emma Dickson (Photography).
Thank you to Matthew Kaplan at GlobeTitles, Jay Alan Zimmerman, David Lu, and Seeing Music (Google), and Shelby Edwards for helping us make this program even more inclusive and accessible. Thanks to our documentation crew, Brian Mountford (Video), Saúl Guanipa (Audio), Attis Clopton (Photography), and Emma Dickson (Photography). Special thanks to Jay Alan Zimmerman, David Lu, Taylor Edelle Stuart, Johanna V. Hayes, and Saúl Guanipa for going above and beyond on show sound, projections, and social media.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to our crowdfunding campaign, and funders Puffin Foundation West, New York Women Composers, The Pollination Project, the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs administered by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC), and partner Inspire: A Choir for Unity. Information about Inspire’s next socially-conscious event is below, and we encourage you to attend!
Sing for Joy & Liberation
Friday, November 15 at 7:30PM
W83 Ministry Center (150 West 83rd St, New York, NY)
Please join Inspire: A Choir for Unity for a concert in partnership with and in support of Sadie Nash Leadership Project. This concert celebrates the strength and power of young women to become agents for change in their lives and in the world. We hope that you can attend! Get tickets now (general admission $10-$40)!
Globetitles was created by Matthew Kaplan. Matt says: “Globetitles is honored to be assisting Habitat: Home. Globetitles provides software and hardware for creating and displaying captions in a variety of formats. Globetitles’ vision is to help make theatrical captioning so easy and convenient it becomes ubiquitous. Its system has been used in venues large and small, near and far, for theater, opera, films, concerts, and presentations of all kinds.”
Inclusive Communication Services
ICS provides professional interpreting services to connect individuals of all backgrounds. Holding a firm belief that neither finances nor location should inhibit inclusion, ICS offers affordable interpreting services, gives back to the community, and travels domestically & internationally to meet your needs.
The World Awaits you, be included!
