Education Resources

David Gonzalez is a professional storyteller, poet, playwright, musician and public speaker.

He is a cultural ambassador for the U.S. State Department, and is the proud recipient of the International Performing Arts for Youth “Lifetime Achievement Award for Sustained Excellence.”

Mr. Gonzalez was named a Fellow of the Joseph Campbell Foundation and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for “Unique Theatrical Experience” for The Frog Bride. David has created numerous productions, including the critically acclaimed ¡Sofrito! with The Latin Legends Band, and MytholoJazz, both of which enjoyed sold-out runs at New Victory Theater. Sleeping Beauty was co-commissioned by the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Brooklyn College, and The McCallum Theater.

David was a featured performer at the National Storytelling Festival, and appeared for three seasons at the Royal National Theatre in London. The Man of the House was commissioned by, and premiered at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2013. Mr. Gonzalez’ work Double Crossed: The Saga of the St. Louis toured nationally, including a run at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. As If the Past Were Listening, was in Lincoln Center Institute’s repertory for three seasons. Finding North, commissioned by the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park ran at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. He co-wrote Mariel, an Afro-Cuban musical won the Macy’s “New Play Prize for Young Audiences.” 

He recently wrote, performed and produced three episodes of GONZO’S MULTIVERSE, a multimedia video variety show for kids, for The National Theater.

David is also the librettist for Rise for Freedom!, produced at the Cincinnati Opera, and wrote and produced Jimi and Mr. B, a musical commissioned by the Empire State Plaza Performing Arts Center. His poems for The Carnival of the Animals with classical piano virtuoso Frederic Chui, premiered in 2008.

David was the host of New York Kids on WNYC for eight seasons, earned his doctorate from New York University’s School of Education, and worked as a music therapist with handicapped children for many years.  

David’s poetry project, City of Dreams, has performed at colleges, festivals, and theaters throughout the country. He is also the Director of Crisalida Communications which consults to arts and civic organizations helping them create effective community outreach programs.

Visit David’s website.

Alexander Davis (he/him) is a New York City-based bassoonist who has been known for his ability to play “with poise and élan” (Cleveland Classical). He is a musician whose artistic intentions center on space-making, connection, and community building within classical music. An advocate of creating equity in the arts, Alexander is the founder and Artistic Director of the Sugar Hill Salon, a chamber music series showcasing black and brown wind artistry based in the culturally robust community of Harlem, NY, and on the stolen traditional territory of the Lenape Nation (www.sugarhillsalon.com).

Alexander performed in the first all-black orchestra to ever hold a concert in the history of Carnegie Hall’s existence with the Gateway Festival Orchestra in April of 2022. He has played in orchestras such as Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, American Composer Orchestra, Albany Symphony, Princeton Symphony Orchestra, Erie Philharmonic, CityMusic Cleveland, Tertulia Chamber Music, Harlem Chamber Players, Sherman Chamber Ensemble, The North Country Chamber Players, and Metropolis. He has performed in summer festivals such as Tanglewood, Ensemble Evolution, Banff Music Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Maine Chamber Music Seminar, and the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival. In addition to performing, Alexander has been the administrative manager of the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival since 2017 where he works alongside Imani Winds to cultivate a new generation of aspiring chamber musicians. He has also been part of the “Armory Artists Corps Teaching Artists” in conjunction with the Park Avenue Armory since 2018, serving NYC public school students by helping them gain access to tools for self exploration in today’s society using interdisciplinary art forms created by artists in residence.

Alexander is adjunct faculty at Montclair State University, the Maine Chamber Music Intensive, and Usdan Summer Arts. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education and Performance from SUNY Fredonia, a Masters in Performance from Stony Brook University, a Performers Certificate in Orchestral Performance from Manhattan School of Music and is currently a Doctoral Candidate of music at Stony Brook University. He has studied with bassoonists Laura Koepke, Frank Morelli, Bob Williams, and Michael Ma.

Learn more about Alexander.

The Past

My interest in New Media began at ACC (Adirondack Community College) junior to senior year of high school. It introduced me to the creative diversity of what the major entails. I latched onto design and video immediately. I studied and bonded with those disciplines in my two years in the program and graduated with a certificates degree. I started my freshman year at Purchase College with classes that made me think past the technical and into the conceptual. I connected with classes like Anthropology, Intro to Sound, and Computers and Culture. These classes (and professors) radiated an energy that furthered my passion for my major. Sophomore year I became more in tune with my passion for film and furthered my education about the world I live in. Science in the Modern World, Video Art I, Screenwriting, Italian I & II. These all started tying my place in the universe of art. In New Media I continued to find new skills and interests that I wouldn’t of typically of found myself interested in, but I gained experience and insight into the classes and fell in love with them. I became obsessed with the versatile power of Film. I felt Italian was a lost tradition in my family that I wanted to retrieve and experience. So, I decided to minor in Film & Italian along with New Media.

The Future

I plan on increasing my skills not only the field of New Media but also Film with a focus in Italian culture. I don’t know how these will all connect yet, but my growing passion for each will eventually help find them a way to swim in the same stream. I also will continue to absorb knowledge of the world and use it to make my existence as an artist feel distinct and useful. The combination of my New Media major skills and my minors makes me a unique candidate, and promotes an outside-of-the-box approach to the New Media major. As I research the world around me, I realize we have so much to say and so little ways to word it. I’m looking to undo this knot of lack of understanding in humanity. I want to have a toolbelt of artistry from my major so I can be equipped to untangle the miscommunication in the world that words cannot fix. I will practice connecting with the souls of others through discovering truths I share I hope that the rest of my years at my college create a path for me to walk into the world I belong in. I don’t know where it is yet, but I am driven to find it through my academic path.

Visit Blake’s website.

Pia Monique Murray is a choreographer, performer, teacher, arts administrator, stage, tour/company manager, rehearsal assistant and creative producer. She has worked with nora chipaumire, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Camille A. Brown, Dianne McIntyre, Chanon Judson, Monica L. Williams, Vangeline Theater and Blondell Cummings in various capacities. She performs contemporary dance with RAKIA!, traditional dance from Côte d’Ivoire with Vado Diomande’s Kotchegna Dance Company, burlesque with brASS Burlesque, and leads Pia Monique Murray Dance Collective (PMMDC). Pia is Bailey’s Cafe’s Producing Artistic Director and the Creative Producer of Kendra J. Ross’ The Sankofa Residency.

Visit Pia’s website.

Paul Yeon Lee, a South Korean-American composer, has been named one of the “25 Contemporary Composers Helping to Push String Music to New Heights” by the international Strings Magazine in the 25th Anniversary Issue (March 2012). The critics have praised Lee’s music that “… stormed the heavens with sweeping melodic gestures, romantic yearning” (The Washington Post), “… put an emphasis on shimmering, shivering effects” (The New York Times), “… deserves many more performances… It’s a perfect example of how lyrical and richly textured a modern work can be” (Strings Magazine), “… mystical atmosphere” (Fanfare Magazine), “… stunning coloristic effects” (San Francisco Classical Voice), “… scintillating piece… deserves critical attention and establishes Lee as a composer to watch” (Times Herald-Record), “… pounding rhythms, bold colors and dissonant effects” (Courier-Post), “… Lee obviously has an imaginative streak when it comes to combining the emanations from various percussions. The music showed inventiveness and knowledge of the instruments” (The Herald-Times), and “… showstopper… A towering, often ferocious work… genuine… Lee is keeping an old flame very, very alive while fueling it with something that could only have been invented in this century.” (Lucid Culture).

Lee is a former composer-in-residence with the Korean Symphony Orchestra, the national orchestra in South Korea. Lee’s honors and awards include two prestigious awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (Charles Ives Scholarship and Walter Hinrichsen Award), composer-in-residence at Flushing Town Hall, New York City Con Edison Musicians’ Residency: Composition Program, two grants from Korean Cultural Service NY, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Composer Workshop, American Composers Orchestra New Music Reading Sessions and Commission Award, Symphony in C Young Composers’ Competition and annual ASCAP Plus Awards. Lee has participated in three festivals at the American Museum of Natural History in New York: Festival Luna, Experience Korea (Lee was the host, curator, artistic collaborator and composer) and Spotlight Asia: Big Cats. Furthermore, Lee has been a fellow at La Folle Journée de Nantes, International Gugak Workshop at National Gugak Center in Seoul Korea, Composers Now Festival at Symphony Space, SONiC FESTiVAL in New York, Maîtrise de Radio France in Paris, Trail Mix Chamber Concerts, World Music Festival Millennium Park in Chicago, Taranaki International Festival of the Arts in New Zealand, Adam Chamber Music Festival in New Zealand, Cutting Edge Concerts Festival, American Composers Alliance’s Festival of American Music, MacDowell Colony, Atlantic Center for the Arts, SCI National Annual Conference in New York as well as many conferences and festivals in universities and conservatories.

Lee has received commissions including from the Korean Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Redwood Symphony, Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra, Anthony J. Cirone (former San Francisco Symphony Percussionist and Chair of the Percussion Department at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music), cellist Ian Maksin, Joshua Friedlander (former violinist of the Florida State University New Music Ensemble), Lost Dog New Music Ensemble, Del Sol String Quartet, Duo Sutre-Kim ensemble and Pascal Rogé (Gramophone Award recipient and Decca recording French pianist). Lee’s Lost in the Echo for violoncello solo was commissioned and premiered by an ardent cellist Ian Maksin in Chicago in April 2014. Subsequently, Maksin released his new solo “Soul Companion” CD in August 2014, which included Lee’s music. In January 2015, Lost in the Echo was chosen to be on Chicago’s radio WFMT’s Relevant Tones “Going Solo” program, which featured several top performers including the world famous-violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. Currently, Maksin performs Lee’s music on his concert tours in the United States, Europe and Russia. The music score of Lost in the Echo is published for sale by Edition Peters. Lee’s Echo of a Dream for full orchestra was commissioned and premiered by the American Composers Orchestra on SONiC FESTiVAL in October 2011 at the World Financial Center Winter Garden in New York. After the concert, Echo of a Dream was voted as an audience’s favorite and it was subsequently broadcasted on WQXR radio station “Re: Sound: Second Installment”. In fall 2016, Echo of a Dream was included in the SONIC: Sounds of a New Century Double Live Recording Album by American Composers Orchestra and the music was later broadcasted on WWFM radio station “The ACO Experience” program. In 2015, Lee challenged himself and composed a main theme song for the upcoming Korean American Drama Series “The Romance Artist,” starring a top model Dae Na and NY theatre actress Esther Nam. Lee’s major performances in 2017 were two world premieres by Korean Symphony Orchestra at Seoul Arts Center in Korea (Synergy for Orchestra and Concertino for Piri and Chamber Orchestra) and multiple performances of The Shadow of Arirang by Duo Sutre-Kim ensemble at the prestigious music festival La Folle Journée de Nantes in France. The Shadow of Arirang was commissioned and premiered by Duo Sutre-Kim (Guillaume Sutre, first violinist of Ysaÿe Quartet and his wife harpist Kyunghee Kim-Sutre) at the “Les Grandes Heures de Saint-Emilion” festival in Saint Emilion, France in June 2016. Duo Sutre-Kim recorded The Shadow of Arirangbeautifully on “Parfums d’Amour” Duo Sutre-Kim 25th Anniversary CD, which was released in late December 2016. Lee is currently composing two major commissions for Korean Symphony Orchestra, including Concerto for Daegeum and Orchestra. The daegeum soloist will be Yoo Hong and the music will be premiered in the 2018-2019 season.

Lee’s music has received many performances by soloists and ensembles throughout the United States, Europe and Asia including the world renowned pianist Pascal Rogé and his wife pianist Ami Rogé, gamin, Ian Maksin, Kate Bowling, Christina Jennings, Mary Fukushima-Kirkendoll, Thomas Piercy, Hyemin Kim & Joohae Kim, Duo Sutre-Kim, Speculum Musicae, SongFusion, Contemporary Music Ensemble at Mannes College of Music, Del Sol String Quartet, Florida State University New Music Ensemble, Ne(x)tworks Ensemble, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Percussion Ensemble, Erato Chamber Orchestra, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Chamber Orchestra, Wayne State University Orchestra, University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, University of Michigan Philharmonia Orchestra, Symphony in C, Redwood Symphony, Quincy Symphony Orchestra, Dearborn Symphony, Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra and Korean Symphony Orchestra. Lee’s music has been performed at Carnegie Hall, Seoul Arts Center (South Korea), La Folle Journée de Nantes (France), Temple de Passy (France), Arsonic (Belgium), Woelfl-Haus Bonn (Germany), Symphony Space, Flushing Town Hall, World Financial Center in New York, Korean Cultural Service of New York, Korea Society in New York, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Tenri Cultural Institute, Smithsonian National Museum, American Museum of Natural History, National Opera America Center, Cornelia Street Café, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Chicago Cultural Center and numerous universities and conservatories.

As an arranger, Lee has collaborated with Pascal Rogé and Ami Rogé on Francis Poulenc’s music L’histoire de Babar. Lee was commissioned by Pascal Rogé to transcribe the music for piano four hands and narrator. Pascal and Ami Rogé have premiered Lee’s transcription in London, England in 1997 and they have continued to perform it in Italy, France, Japan, United States, Australia and other countries. They plan to record it in future. The music score of new arrangement is published for sale by Chester Edition in London. In 2011, Lee has assisted a jazz singer Lisa Kirchner on her album “Something To Sing About”. Lee has transposed several songs including In Autumn by Charles Ives, Fort Tryon Park by John Corigliano, Suicide in C Minor by William Schimmel, Early in the Morning by Ned Rorem, Lelia’s Song by John Adams, Acrostic Song by David Del Tredici, Strange by John Harbison, Night Make My Day by William Bolcom, Under the Willow Tree by Samuel Barber, The Little Horses and Long Time Ago by Aaron Copland.

A member of ASCAP, Lee holds a bachelor’s degree from San José State University, and master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In addition to his principal teachers Leslie Bassett, Bright Sheng, William Bolcom, Pablo Furman, and Allen Strange, Lee has participated in masterclasses with George Crumb, Andrew Imbrie, Mario Davidovsky, and David Del Tredici. Lee has been active as a music consultant for the American Museum of Natural History and currently teaches at SUNY Westchester Community College. His music is published by Theodore Presser Company, Edition Peters, and Chester Music.

Visit Paul’s website.

Jeannette Rodríguez Píneda is a Dominican-American mixed media artist living and working between Santo Domingo and NYC.

Using antiquarian and analog photographic processes to explore the borders of home, identity, and memory, Rodríguez Píneda teaches radical printed matter and time-based media for many youth serving arts programs, including Groundswell, Queens Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem, Whitney Museum of American Arts and Recess. Additionally, Jeannette founded MOVIMIENTO, a free bilingual hiking initiative that fosters inclusion and equity in the outdoors.