Meet our Com­posers for The Sea­sons Fall Fes­ti­val 2011

 

Alberto Demestres, Guest Composer-in-Residence

Barcelona-born Alberto Demestres already has over eighty works in his cat­a­logue, includ­ing operas, choral works, and film scores. Alberto com­bines his career as a com­poser with the spread­ing of con­tem­po­rary music and the sup­port of young per­form­ers by means of his radio pro­gram Tutto Demestres  at COM Ràdio (Barcelona). His list of prizes is inter­na­tional includ­ing Spain, Greece, Monte Carlo, Eng­land, and the United States.

 

Tim­o­thy Esh­ing, Com­po­si­tion Fellow

Tim­o­thy Esh­ing is cur­rently Moritz von Bomhard fel­low in music com­po­si­tion and res­i­dent violist/teaching assis­tant with the Grad­u­ate String Quar­tet at the Uni­ver­sity of Louisville School of Music, where he is cur­rently pur­su­ing master’s degrees in both areas. An avid inter­dis­ci­pli­nar­ian, he focuses equally on com­po­si­tion, per­for­mance, crit­i­cism, the­ory, and phi­los­o­phy of music. When not work­ing on music or related top­ics he enjoys cof­fee, poetry, a good game of chess, and climb­ing large trees as fast as possible.

 

Daniel Gilliam, Com­po­si­tion Fel­low

Return­ing for his sec­ond year as a Sea­sons Com­po­si­tion Fel­low, Daniel Gilliam is a com­poser liv­ing in St. Paul, MN. Past com­mis­sions and per­for­mances include Then Sing! for the Louisville Youth Choir’s 40^th Anniver­sary Sea­son and Cake­walk pre­miered by the Turin Phil­har­monic Orches­tra of Italy. Com­mis­sions in 2010 included music for The Phoenix Con­certs series in New York City per­formed by the Fin­is­terra Piano Trio.  Daniel is also Pro­gram Direc­tor for Clas­si­cal Min­nesota Pub­lic Radio.

 

Joshua Jan­dreau, Com­po­si­tion Fellow

Joshua Jan­dreau, from South China, Maine is in his fourth year pur­su­ing a B.M. degree in Music Edu­ca­tion at the Uni­ver­sity of Maine, where he cur­rently stud­ies com­po­si­tion with Beth Wie­mann.  Joshua was awarded “Best Orig­i­nal Music” at a state com­pe­ti­tion for his com­po­si­tion accom­pa­ny­ing a high school the­atre pro­duc­tion of Alivia’s Inferno.  A tubist, Mr. Jan­dreau par­tic­i­pates in and tours with the Uni­ver­sity of Maine Sym­phonic Band, which will be pre­mier­ing one of his new works this com­ing spring.

 

Slavko Krstic, Com­po­si­tion Fellow

Slavko Krstic immi­grated to the U.S. at the age of 17 as music began to replace astro­physics as his cho­sen career goal. After grad­u­at­ing from the Uni­ver­sity of Con­necti­cut he headed for New York and the life of tour­ing as vocal­ist with a pro­gres­sive rock band. As his musi­cal aes­thetic grew he gave up rock and pur­sued the study of music com­po­si­tion with Daron Hagen and piano with Marc Pelo­quin. By day he sup­ports his musi­cal habit as a soft­ware engineer.

 

 

Michael Laster, Com­po­si­tion Fel­low

Michael Laster remem­bers com­pos­ing short melodies on piano while in ele­men­tary school, in addi­tion to con­duct­ing Disney’s Fan­ta­sia along with Leopold Stokowski, a film which trig­gered a last­ing love for clas­si­cal music. After watch­ing Leonard Bernstein’s Charles Eliot Nor­ton Lec­tures at Har­vard, the emo­tional range and the aes­thetic chal­lenge of con­cert music proved irre­sistible. Michael stud­ies pri­vately with Daron Hagen in New York, and is cur­rently pur­su­ing a BA in Music at The City Col­lege of New York. This will be Michael’s third sea­son with the Fall Festival.

 

Daniel Morel, Com­po­si­tion Fel­low

Daniel Morel holds a B.A. in Music (2003) and a B.A. in Com­puter Sci­ence (2003) from Buck­nell Uni­ver­sity and a M.M. in Com­po­si­tion (2011) from The Hartt School of the Uni­ver­sity of Hart­ford, where he is cur­rently work­ing toward an A.D. in Music Com­po­si­tion.  Pre­vi­ous com­po­si­tion teach­ers include Robert Carl, William Duck­worth, Stephen Gryc, Cherise Leiter, Con­rad Kehn, Larry Alan Smith.  Daniel’s works have been pre­miered by such groups as the Arts Street Orga­ni­za­tion, Buck­nell Jazz Machine, Cherry Creek Chorale, Hartt Wind Ensem­ble, Longfel­low Cho­rus, and West End Brass Quintet.

 

Carl Ret­tke, Com­po­si­tion Fel­low

Carl Ret­tke became fas­ci­nated with musi­cal expres­sion at age six when his par­ents gave him a small elec­tronic key­board for Christ­mas, lead­ing to his first piano les­son at the age of nine.  That led to many awards for piano per­for­mance includ­ing Final­ist in the Min­nesota Music Teach­ers Asso­ci­a­tion Piano Com­pe­ti­tion and First Place in his age divi­sion in the St. Paul Con­ser­va­tory Com­pe­ti­tion for Piano, Strings and Gui­tar. Carl is a recent grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­sity of Wisconsin-Madison with a bachelor’s degree in music com­po­si­tion, where he stud­ied under the guid­ance of Pro­fes­sors Stephen Dem­b­ski and Laura Schwendinger and per­formed with numer­ous small ensem­bles on piano, as well as the University’s jazz combo on drum set.

 

Jes­sica Rud­man, Com­po­si­tion Fel­low

NYC-based com­poser Jes­sica Rudman’s music has been per­formed across the United States and in France, Italy, Spain, and Turkey.  Jessica’s Vor­tices, pre­miered by the Yakima Sym­phony Cham­ber Orches­tra at the 2010 Sea­sons Fall Fes­ti­val was awarded the Inter­na­tional Alliance for Women in Music’s 2011 Libby Larsen Prize. Jes­sica holds degrees from the Uni­ver­sity of Vir­ginia and The Hartt School, and she is cur­rently pur­su­ing a Ph.D. at CUNY, where she is a stu­dent of Tania León.

 

John Van Geen, Com­po­si­tion Fellow

John Van Geem, age 24, was born in Mt. Prospect, IL. Being involved in many of his school’s music pro­grams, he real­ized his true gift and pas­sion was in music com­po­si­tion. Attend­ing Roo­sevelt University’s Chicago Col­lege of Per­form­ing Arts, he staged many per­for­mances of acoustic vari­ance and res­o­nances. After receiv­ing his diploma, he set up a stu­dio where he teaches pri­vate lessons, arranges for local com­mu­nity groups, and writes orig­i­nal scores for new media projects.

 

 

THE 2011 SEASONS COMPOSERS SEMINAR

The third annual Sea­sons Fes­ti­val Acad­emy will take place from Octo­ber 11^th to the 16^th at the Sea­sons Per­for­mance Hall in Yakima, Wash­ing­ton. Under the guid­ance of com­poser and Sea­sons Music Fes­ti­val Artis­tic Direc­tor, Daron Hagen, and com­poser, Gilda Lyons, com­posers will be intensely immersed in the craft, the tools, and the pub­lic skills required of com­posers of con­cert music.

 

The relaxed rhythms of this cen­tral Wash­ing­ton com­mu­nity — only a few hours from the major met­ro­pol­i­tan cen­ters of the North­west — pro­vide a per­fect, hos­pitable back­drop for work­ing com­posers. Each Com­poser Fel­low will be part­nered with a Con­duc­tor Fel­low for the dura­tion of the fes­ti­val. Fel­lows should plan to arrive on the evening of Octo­ber 10^th and depart the morn­ing of the 17^th.

 

Each com­poser will:

have the oppor­tu­nity to com­pose a four-minute work for the Yakima Sym­phony Cham­ber Orches­tra. This work will be rehearsed and pro­fes­sion­ally pre­miered in con­cert at the end of the fes­ti­val under the baton of a Con­duct­ing Fellow.

have the oppor­tu­nity to com­pose a move­ment for piano trio for the Fin­is­terra Piano Trio. This work will be rehearsed and recorded by the trio. Com­posers receive record­ings of their works.

receive podium time as con­duc­tor dur­ing one of the con­duct­ing sem­i­nar ses­sions and receive coach­ing from the con­duct­ing fac­ulty at that session.

receive one pri­vate com­po­si­tion les­son, share their work with col­leagues in a nur­tur­ing setting.

par­tic­i­pate in post-graduate level sem­i­nars led by the Acad­emy faculty.

This year’s sem­i­nar top­ics are:

Music Pub­lish­ing and Career Building

Score and Parts Prepa­ra­tion to MOLA Specifications

Prosody and Text Setting

Score Analy­sis

Pro­fes­sional Eti­quette and Procedures

Invi­ta­tion is highly selec­tive and lim­ited to twelve com­posers. The sole qual­i­fi­ca­tions are tal­ent and a devel­oped craft. Past Com­poser Fel­lows have ranged in age from sev­en­teen to forty-five and included emerg­ing, college-level, and mid-career professionals.

 

Tuition is $1750 ($500 on accep­tance as deposit, bal­ance due by the first meet­ing of the work­shop). Hous­ing in pri­vate homes will be provided.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE FOR COMPOSERS

Send two full scores (PDF for­mat only) and accom­pa­ny­ing record­ings (mp3 for­mat only) for an orches­tral work and a cham­ber work — with or with­out voice — via wetransfer.com to director@seasonsmusicfestival.org. Send acoustic record­ings only; midi record­ings will be disqualified.

 

In a seper­ate email, stip­u­late the titles of your sub­mit­ted scores, and include either a link to your per­sonal web­site where a biog­ra­phy and fur­ther infor­ma­tion may be found, or a biog­ra­phy. Invi­ta­tions will be made via email on May 1^st, 2011.

 

DEADLINE

March 15^th, 2011.