Faculty & Artists In Residence

Arté Warren is a flautist, freelance pianist, aspiring songwriter, producer, and audio engineer from Baltimore, Maryland. He attends Morgan State University in Baltimore where he’s entering his senior year as a Music major with a concentration in Flute Performance having studied under Dr. Anita Thesen, and is dual-enrolled for his Master of Arts in Teaching. He is a member of the Magnificent Marching Machine at Morgan State University under the direction of Mr. Melvin N. Miles Jr. Arté is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity.

Composer and electric guitarist D. J. Sparr, who Gramophone recently hailed as “exemplary,” is one of America’s preeminent composer-performers. He has caught the attention of critics with his eclectic style, described as “pop-Romantic…iridescent and wondrous” (The Mercury News) and “suits the boundary erasing spirit of today’s new-music world” (The New York Times). The Los Angeles Times praises him as “an excellent soloist,” and the Santa Cruz Sentinel says that he “wowed an enthusiastic audience…Sparr’s guitar sang in a near-human voice.” He was the electric guitar concerto soloist on the 2018 GRAMMY award-winning, all-Kenneth Fuchs recording with JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra. In 2011, Sparr was named one of NPR listener’s favorite 100 composers under the age 40. He has composed for and performed with renowned ensembles such as the Houston Grand Opera, Cabrillo Festival, New World Symphony, Washington National Opera, and Eighth Blackbird. His music has received awards from BMI, New Music USA, and the League of Composers/ISCM. Sparr is a faculty member at the famed Walden School’s Creative Musicians Retreat in Dublin, New Hampshire. His works and guitar performances appear on Naxos, Innova Recordings, and Centaur Records.

D.J. lives in Baton Rouge, LA with his wife Kimberly, son Harris, Nannette the hound dog, and Bundini the boxer. Sparr’s music is published by Bill Holab Music.

Faculty, Creative Musicians Retreat

Called a “bright wom[a]n with big ideas” (Souls in Action), Colorado-based composer Loretta K. Notareschi (b. 1977) seeks to create “compassion” (303 Magazine) and connection through her “powerful” (The Denver Post) and “deeply personal” (5280 Magazine) music. Whether writing for string quartet or symphony orchestra, church congregations or classical ukulele players, she seeks to “connec[t] with the audience” (303 Magazine) and move listeners with music of meaning.

Born in Canton, Ohio and raised in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Notareschi is a professor of music at Regis University and a summer faculty member of The Walden School Creative Musicians Retreat. She received master’s and doctoral degrees in composition from the University of California at Berkeley, a bachelor’s of music in composition from the University of Southern California, and the General Diploma from the Zoltàn Kodàly Pedagogical Institute of Music in Kecskemèt, Hungary, where she was a Fulbright Scholar. Notareschi’s music has been performed in the United States, Europe, and South America by groups as diverse as the Spektral Quartet, the Sacred and Profane Chamber Chorus, the Duo Montagnard, The Playground Ensemble, the Boulder Symphony, and the former Ensemble Eleven. She has received awards and grants from the Cincinnati Camerata, IronWorks Percussion Duo, the American Composers Forum, and the GALA Choruses, and in October 2016, she was a TEDxMileHigh speaker. Her primary teachers in composition have included Morten Lauridsen, Erica Muhl, Rick Lesemann, Cindy Cox, and Jorge Liderman, and her music is published by Disegni Music, Friedrich Hofmeister, and Bachovich.

Osnat Netzer /osˈnat ˈnɛtsɛʁ/ is a composer, performer and educator. Osnat creates her compositions collaboratively, tailoring her work to the performer’s sensibilities, physicality and improvisational inclinations. She takes inspiration from cognitive linguistics, and in dialogue with the embodied experience of physical forces, such as potential and kinetic energy, resulting in compositions that are rich in musical languages and connected to the fulsome pursuit for tension and relaxation.

Born in Haifa, Israel, Netzer studied composition and piano at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where her primary composition teacher was Menachem Zur. She came to the United States in 2003 for graduate studies in composition with Robert Cuckson at Mannes school of Music and continued her studies with Lee Hyla at New England Conservatory, where she earned her doctorate in 2011. In 2019, she joined the faculty of DePaul University as Assistant Professor of Composition and Musicianship.

Netzer’s works have been commissioned and performed by Ensemble Dal Niente, ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble), Patchwork, mezzo-soprano Lucy Dhegrae, bass David Salsbery Fry, saxophonists Kenneth Radnofsky, Doug O’Connor and Geoffrey Landman, Spektral Quartet, and Winsor Music, among many others, published by Edition Peters and earthsongs, and recorded on Bridge Records and New Focus Recordings.

As a pianist and performer, she regularly plays and conducts new music by fellow composers, as well as her own songs and compositions. Also a committed and passionate educator, Netzer teaches at The Walden School and has served on the faculties of New England Conservatory, Longy School of Music of Bard College and Harvard University. 

Renée Favand-See is a composer and soprano living in Portland, Oregon. Her works explore the music of words, natural and made environments, emotions and spiritual questions. These investigations yield vocal music of all stripes, Musique Concrète-esque electronic pieces, and lyrically driven instrumental music cultivating relationships that unfold in the spaces between voices.

In January, 2021 Trio Triumphatrix and Voices of Ascension premiered Renée’s works First Flight and We Need Earth for their production Astronautica: Voices of Women in Space. Recent projects include: Solitude for soprano Arwen Myers; Ten full moons for Northwest Art Song; Wie der Katz mit der Maus for fEARnoMUSIC; Growing for Portland Piano International; as well as a recording project of her work Only in falling with Resonance Ensemble. Among her commissions are works for Voices of Ascension, Resonance Ensemble, Five Boroughs Music Festival, Lucy Shelton and Eighth Blackbird, Sequitur, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, American Opera Projects, Wet Ink Ensemble, Outer Voices Festival, and cellist Ha-Yang Kim. Other groups who have performed her music include The Julians; Friends of Rain; Electrogals; Del Sol String Quartet; Peabody Trio; and many singers, including Hai-Ting Chinn, Jesse Blumberg, Blythe Gaissert, Hannah Penn, Anna Haagenson, Alissa Rose, Jennifer Aylmer, Kristin Norderval, and William Ferguson.

Renée has written chamber, orchestral, choral and electronic pieces, as well as music for video and dance, including collaborations with Ten Tiny Dances in Portland, TRIP Dance Theatre in Los Angeles, Group Motion in Philadelphia and video artist Christine Sciulli in New York City. Renée has also ventured into theater, with long-time friend and collaborator, Hai-Ting Chinn, with Science Fair, a staged vocal recital produced by HERE Arts Center in New York City.

Her honors include a grant from the American Music Center for her oratorio Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes., a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Bearns Prize from Columbia University.

She holds B.M. and M.M. degrees in composition from the Eastman and Yale Schools of Music, respectively. Her earliest compositional studies began at age twelve at The Walden School, a summer program for young musicians in Dublin, New Hampshire.

Renée currently teaches music composition and theory at Portland State University and Creative Musicians Retreat in New England.

Sam Pluta is a composer, electronics performer, and sound artist. Though his work has a wide breadth, his central focus is on using the computer as a performance instrument capable of sharing the stage with groups ranging from new music ensembles to world-class improvisers. By creating musical systems of shared agency, Pluta’s vibrant sonic universe focuses on the visceral interaction of instrumental performers with reactive computerized sound worlds.

As a composer of instrumental music, Pluta has written works for Wet Ink Ensemble, the New York Philharmonic, International Contemporary Ensemble, Yarn/Wire, Spektral Quartet, and other groups. His compositions range from solo instrumental works to pieces for ensemble with electronics to compositions for large ensemble. 

Pluta is the Technical Director for the Wet Ink Ensemble, a group for whom he is a member composer as well as principal electronics performer. As a performer of chamber music, in addition to his own works, Pluta has performed and premiered works by Peter Ablinger, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Charmaine Lee, Katharina Rosenberger, George Lewis, Alvin Lucier, Chiyoko Szlavnics, Kate Soper, Eric Wubbels and others.

As an improviser, Pluta has collaborated with some of the finest creative musicians in the world, including Peter Evans, Evan Parker, Ikue Mori, Craig Taborn, Ingrid Laubrock, Ben Lamar Gay, and Anne La Berge. Pluta is a member of multiple improvisation-based ensembles, including the jazz influenced Peter Evans Ensemble, the free improvisation-based Rocket Science, and the analog synth/laptop duo exclusiveOr (with Jeff Snyder). With these various groups he has toured Europe and America and performed at major festivals and venues, such as the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, the Moers and Donaueshingen Festivals in Germany, Bimhuis in Amsterdam, and The Vortex in London.

Pluta studied composition and electronic music at Columbia University, where he received his DMA in 2012. He received Master’s degrees from the University of Birmingham in the UK and the University of Texas at Austin, and completed his undergraduate work at Santa Clara University. His principal teachers include Brad Garton, George Lewis, Tristan Murail, Fabien Levy, Scott Wilson, Jonty Harrison, Russell Pinkston, Kevin Puts, and Lynn Shurtleff. Previous to joining the Computer Music faculty at Peabody Institute, Pluta taught composition and computer music at the University of Chicago, Bennington College, Manhattan School of Music, and The Walden School.