Soundscapes

Majel Connery is an unclassifiable artist who rarely says no to anything. Her music ranges from the guttural to the sublime, appearing in punk rock clubs at night and by day at major destinations from The Kennedy Center to The Kitchen.

A vocalist and composer, Connery combines Classical influences with an electronic mentality. Her singing has been called “superb” by the New York Times and her composition “thoroughly Schubertian” by the Wall Street Journal.

Connery is the host and producer of A Music of Their Own, an interview podcast on women in music (CapRadio/NPR). Her interest in radio began in 2019 after creating music for five episodes of Radiolab’s “Gonads” series (available on Bandcamp).

As a composer, her work includes “The Rivers are Our Brothers,” an environmental song cycle currently on tour with Grammy-winning choir Chanticleer. She has also released multiple albums with composer-collective Oracle Hysterical, and the double EP Bear Mountain/Childworld with her art-rock duo Sky Creature.

In academia, Connery has held a variety of artist residencies and professorships at institutions including Princeton, Stanford, the University of Chicago, Wellesley College, and the University of California Berkeley. From 2007-2018, she co-founded and ran the experimental opera company, Opera Cabal, a think tank for the conjunction of creative and academic work on opera. Opera Cabal’s production of ATTHIS at The Kitchen was called “mesmerizing” by the New York Times.

Connery holds an M.A/Ph.D. in ethnomusicology and musicology from the University of Chicago and an A.B. in music from Princeton University. She lives part-time in Catskill, NY, part-time in Rockaway Beach, NY, and the rest of the time in the world at large.

Visit her website here.

Felix Fan’s versatility has made him one of the most sought-after cellists of his generation. As a chamber musician, he has performed with Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham, and Janos Starker, in venues such as Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Musikverein, and Royal Festival Hall. Fan’s recent solo engagements include the San Diego and Pacific Symphonies, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Macau Symphony Orchestra, and the Munich Chamber Orchestra. In 2006, Fan and violinist Cho-Liang Lin recorded Gordon Chin’s Double Concerto with Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony (Naxos).

Fan’s interest in contemporary music has led to collaborations with today’s leading composers including George Crumb, Tan Dun, Hans Werner Henze, Oliver Knussen, Kaija Saariaho, and Charles Wuorinen. Appearances with the Bang on a Can All-Stars have allowed Fan to work with artists as diverse as Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Terry Riley, and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth. In 2008, Fan joined the Flux Quartet.

In 1998, Fan founded Muzik3, a performance series and commissioning foundation dedicated to the advancement of modern music with an emphasis on integrating theater, dance, and video. Muzik3 led to the formation of Real Quiet, a trio consisting of Fan, David Cossin (percussion), and Andrew Russo (piano). Since its inception in 2004, Real Quiet has premiered over 20 works and recorded music by Marc Mellits (Endeavour Records) and David Lang (Naxos). In 2005, Fan performed a series of radio plays written by acclaimed screenwriters Charlie Kaufman and the Coen Brothers, starring actors Steve Buscemi, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Meryl Streep. Fan has also worked with innovative choreographers Karole Armitage, Shen Wei, and Christopher Wheeldon.

Fan studied cello with Eleanore Schoenfeld (University of Southern California), Janos Starker (Indiana University), Aldo Parisot (Yale University), and Boris Pergamenschikow (Hochschule fur Musik, Cologne, Germany). In 1994, he was honored by Bill Clinton as a Presidential Scholar. Fan plays the ‘Haussman’ Stradivarius of 1724.

Visit his website here.

Rob Schwimmer is a composer-pianist, thereminist, keyboardist, vocalist, Haken Continuum, and Ondioline player. Rob has performed and recorded throughout the world from Carnegie Hall to Madison Square Garden, Tokyo Dome, The Blue Note, CBGB’s, and the Colosseum (Rome) playing for 600,000 people.

Rob Schwimmer has worked with Simon and Garfunkel, Wayne Shorter, Antonio Carlos Jobim, The Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Bobby McFerrin, Willie Nelson, Esperanza Spalding, Paul Simon, The Boston Pops, Stevie Wonder, Gotye, Laurie Anderson, Mark Morris, Chaka Khan, Laurie Anderson, Trey Anastasio, A-ha, Bette Midler, The Everly Brothers, Christian Marclay, Matthew Barney, Kat Edmonson and many more.

Robschwimmer.com

Composer, multi-instrumentalist, and interdisciplinary artist Darian Donovan Thomas was born in San Antonio, Texas, and is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. He is interested in combining genres and mediums into a singular vocabulary that can express ideas about intersectionality (of medium and identity). Necessarily, he is interested in redacting all barriers to entry that have existed at the gates of any genre – this vocabulary of multiplicity will be intersectional, and therefore all-inclusive. 

Darian has been commissioned by YOSA (the Youth Orchestras of San Antonio), Bang on a Can’s summer festival Banglewood, and percussionists at Bard College Conservatory, and Sam Houston State University, among others. His music has been premiered by So Percussion, YOSA, Bang on a Can Banglewood Fellows, SoSI Fellows, and performed in Iceland, Switzerland, Canada, and all around the United States.

On any given night you can find Darian performing anywhere from a salon house show to a grungy basement to a bar/venue to a formal concert hall. As a means of exercising his interdisciplinary nature, Darian is currently performing with eight bands and ensembles in New York, as well as creating interdisciplinary work in different visual mediums. He has recently performed with Moses Sumney on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, in a Tiny Desk concert with critically acclaimed dreambow band Balun, toured internationally to Iceland with Apartment Sessions, toured nationally and recorded with the Katie Martucci Band, is performing with MEDIAQUEER, Mordechai, String Orchestra of Brooklyn, Prompts Collective, and constantly performs his solo set in different venues around NYC. He has toured China, England, and Wales, and has performed nationally with the Josh Abbott Band to audiences of thousands of people. 

Darian received his Bachelor in Music Composition from The University of the Incarnate Word (2016) in San Antonio, Texas. He has since been a New Amsterdam Records Composer Lab Fellow (2018), So Percussion Summer Institute (SoSI) Composer Fellow (2018), Infinite Palette composer-performer for Aeon Ritual at MASSMoCA (2019), and a Bang on a Can Summer Institute “Banglewood” Composer Fellow (2019). He has studied with Julia Wolfe, David Lang, Michael Gordon, Sarah Kirkland Snider, William Brittelle, Andrea Mazzariello, and Troy Peters, amongst others.

With composition engagements scheduled through the coming year, he is currently composing for musicians in Australia, Germany, Russia, and Canada. 

He is writing a piece for Piano and Orchestra which will be toured by Adam Tender and YOSA around the northeast next Summer, with a performance in Carnegie Hall. 

Visit Darian’s website here.

Kalia Vandever is an American trombonist and composer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her approach to the trombone is distinctive and defined by her sonorous tone and lyrical improvisational voice. She leans into the challenges of the instrument and allows patience and melody to guide her process.

In her compositional practice, Kalia draws from her love of songs and improvisation, creating a landscape of sounds that resonate in the body and hold the listener. She released her debut ensemble album, In Bloom in 2019 which has been described as “the rise of an exciting voice for the music” (Seton Hawkins, Hot House Jazz Magazine). Her sophomore album, Regrowth released in May 2022 on New Amsterdam Records and “confirms her strengths as a composer and bandleader with a distinctly contemporary point of view.” (Nate Chinen, WBGO Jazz) Her debut solo album, We Fell In Turn featuring her works for trombone, voice, and electronics released on AKP Records in March 2023.  

Kalia received her Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Studies at the Juilliard School in 2017.  She has toured and performed internationally with her quartet, performing at festivals such as the Winter Jazz Festival and BRIC Jazz Festival. She is also known for her work as a side-woman, performing with jazz artists including  Joel Ross, Immanuel Wilkins, and Fay Victor, to name a few. She has also performed with popular artists including Harry Styles, Lizzo, Japanese Breakfast, Moses Sumney, Jennifer Hudson, and Demi Lovato. She has appeared on Saturday Night Live twice, as well as Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal. 

Kalia is an awardee of the 2022 Next Jazz Legacy, a program founded by New Music USA and the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice. She was also selected to curate the 2022 Music Series for The Arts Center at Duck Creek in East Hampton.

Along with her performance work, Kalia has been commissioned to write works for groups and individuals including Tesla Quartet, The Westerlies, Katherine Kyu Hyeon Lim, and Hats & Heels Duo. 

She is also experienced as an educator, having led masterclasses at universities including California Institute of the Arts, University of Chicago Illinois, Cal State Northridge, Saddleback College, University of Maine Farmington, and University of Missouri. She has also led clinics for organizations including CWU Jenn, Women of Jazz and Creative Music, Women in Jazz Organization, and Live From Our Living Rooms.

Kalia endorses Conn Selmer and Bach instruments as well as Denis Wick London. Visit her website here.

To listen to Haldeman’s work, click here.

Born in Graz, Austria, Dorit Chrysler is a Berlin/New York-based composer, sound artist, musicologist and Theremin Virtuoso. She is the recipient of the Austrian State Stipend in Composition 2023 and the co-founder of the New York Theremin Society. A participating artist at the 2023 Shanghai Biennale, Chrysler has presented her work in solo shows at Kunstwerke Berlin and the Ny Fridman Gallery.

Since her first encounter with the Theremin, she has mastered the instrument and has applied its technology in varied art disciplines. Her work has been commissioned by MoMA (“Calder Plays Theremin”), Steirische Herbst, Knightsbridge Foundation, and Klangfestival. Chrysler has performed with the San Fransciso Symphony and at Lincoln Center and Vienna Konzerhaus, just to name a few. She has toured worldwide and has held residencies at Pioneerworks, LostandFoundLab, and Villa Tereza. Her sonic works are in collections at the Guggenheim, Brooklyn, and Louisiana Museums.

Chrysler also composed for film and theater, including the feature Happyland, excerpts of HBO’s Going Clear and MEineStadt Sucht einen Moerder, and 3 Episodes of Life, which received the Nestroy Price.

Chrysler has collaborated with the San Fransisco Symphony, CERN, Laurie Spiegel, Marie Losier, Herb Deutsch, Elliot Sharp, Trentemøller, Alva Noto, Nicole Beutler, and the Gaite Lyrique. As the artistic director of the New York Theremin Society, she promotes the application of theremin and has developed a curriculum in how to master the instrument.

Chrysler has curated and produced a ten-piece orchestra performance for the LA DisneyHall and is the founder of “Dame Electric,” a festival featuring female pioneers of electronic music. Her recordings appear on over 20 releases such as InMyRoomRecords (DE), The Prurience Factory (US), Monika Enterprise (DE), PlagDichNicht (AU), PlasticTrayRecords (US), and Mute.