Creative Musicians Retreat Artists

Amy Beth Kirsten, CMR 2023 Composer-in-Residence

Amy Beth Kirsten, “…one of America’s most innovative and visionary composers,” (BBC Music Magazine, March 2019) is known primarily for her multi-year, multimedia theatrical collaborations. She has cast herself in roles as varied as composer, poet, filmmaker, vocalist, and director. Her body of theatrical work spans the last eighteen years, and often considers musicians’ instruments, bodies, and voices as equal vehicles of expression. Also a composer of non-theatrical concert works, she has been recognized with awards and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2020), John S. Guggenheim Foundation (2010) and the Rockefeller Foundation (2009). In addition to her position at Longy School of Music, she is Visiting Guest Faculty at the Curtis Institute, and Composer Mentor for the Blueprint Fellowship at Juilliard. She has held previous teaching posts at Oberlin College and Conservatory as well as at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. The Toulmin Foundation, Chamber Music America, the MAP Fund, and many other generous patrons, foundations, and institutions support her work.

David Friend, piano

David Friend is taking piano performance in new directions. As chamber musician, soloist, and in interdisciplinary projects, his performances have been hailed as “astonishingly compelling” (Washington Post), and he won a Grammy Award in 2017. He has performed at major venues around the world including Carnegie Hall, Royal Festival Hall (London), and the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Beijing). As a soloist, David Friend is noted for charismatic performances and thoughtful programming. Through compelling solo programs and meaningful audience engagement, he brings a twenty-first century approach to the nineteenth-century piano recital format.

Bonnie Whiting, percussion

Bonnie Whiting performs, commissions, and composes new experimental music for percussion. She seeks out projects involving non-traditional notation, interdisciplinary performance, improvisation, and the speaking percussionist. She lives and works in Seattle, WA, where she is Chair of Percussion Studies and an Associate Professor at the University of Washington School of Music. Whiting has collaborated with many of today’s leading new music groups, including red fish blue fish percussion group, (George Crumb’s Winds of Destiny directed by Peter Sellars and featuring soprano Dawn Upshaw for the Ojai Festival), eighth blackbird (the “Tune-in” festival at the Park Avenue Armory), the International Contemporary Ensemble (on-stage featured percussionist/mover in Andriessen’s epic Die Materie at the Park Avenue Armory, and the American premiere of James Dillon’s Nine Rivers at Miller Theatre), Bang on a Can (Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians for the LA Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series) and Ensemble Dal Niente (the Fromm Concerts at Harvard.).

Thomas Colohan, Choral Director

Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, flute

Flutist and music creator Isabel Lepanto Gleicher is a soloist, chamber musician and educator. Enjoying an international career, Isabel performs throughout Europe, China, Japan, Canada and the United States. The New York Times has called her “excellent” and John Zorn writes “Isabel’s display of virtuosity and her beautiful attitude and stunning musicality inspired me.” Isabel is an artist member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICEensemble), new music sinfonietta Ensemble Echappe, the Annapolis Chamber Music Festival, and hip-hop band ShoutHouse. She is a founding member of woodwind quintet SoundMind. Her project Song Sessions, alongside clarinetist Eric Umble, and composer Barry Sharp received a 2019 New Music USA grant. Isabel performs with ensembles such as wild Up, Talea Ensemble, the Argento New Music Project, Contemporaneous, Imani Winds and Friends of MATA Ensemble.

Daniel Lippel, guitar

Guitarist Daniel Lippel, called an “exciting soloist” (New York Times) has a multi-faceted career. Recent recital highlights include Le Poisson Rouge (NYC), Sinus Ton Festival (Germany), and the National University of Colombia in Bogota. As a contemporary chamber musician, he has been a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble since 2005, Flexible Music since 2004, and counter)induction since 2019, and played as a guest with many ensembles, performing at the Mostly Mozart Festival, Ojai Festival, Ottawa Chamber Festival, Macau Festival, and Kunst Universitaet Graz (Austria). He has worked closely with many composers including Mario Davidovsky, Nils Vigeland, Ken Ueno, Dai Fujikura, Tyshawn Sorey, Wang Lu, and Du Yun, as well as in various improvised and creative contexts. He is the co-founder, owner, and director of New Focus Recordings, performing and producing on several of its albums, as well as appearing on recordings on other labels including Kairos, Sony Classical Japan, Bridge, and Tzadik. Lippel has given presentations and masterclasses at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule (Berlin), Curtis Institute, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and San Francisco Conservatory, among others. He completed his DMA at the Manhattan School of Music.

Josh Modney, violin

Josh Modney is a violinist and creative musician working at the nexus of composition, improvisation, and interpretation. A “new-music luminary” (The New York Times) hailed as “one of today’s most intrepid experimentalists” (Bandcamp Daily), Modney is a foremost interpreter of adventurous contemporary music, and has cultivated a holistic artistic practice as a composer, solo improviser, bandleader, writer, arts administrator, and collaborator. Modney is the violinist and Executive Director of the Wet Ink Ensemble, and a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble. Modney has composed music for violin solo, chamber ensemble, and film (“Dreamland”, Paramount Pictures), and has a forthcoming album of quartet music written for acclaimed creative musicians Ingrid Laubrock (saxophones), Mariel Roberts (cello), and Cory Smythe (piano), to be released on Carrier Records in August 2022. Modney’s triple-disc debut solo release, Engage (New Focus Recordings, 2018), featuring works written for Modney by Kate Soper, Eric Wubbels, and Sam Pluta alongside music by Anthony Braxton, J.S. Bach, and Modney’s own solo violin music, was lauded by The New York Times as “one of the most intriguing programs of the year”. Modney’s writing on Just Intonation and collaborative musical practices has been published on Sound American and New Music Box, and he is the co-founder and editor of Wet Ink Archive, an online journal of adventurous music.

Mike Lormand, trombone

New York City-based trombonist Mike Lormand is a performer of eclectic contemporary and classical music. He is a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Deviant Septet, IRIS Orchestra, Riverside Symphony, and Weather Vest. He also plays frequently with groups such as Talea Ensemble, Argento Chamber Ensemble, NOVUS NY, and Paragon Ragtime Orchestra. Mike’s love for the orchestral repertoire has led to performances with the Metropolitan Opera, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, The Knights, New York City Ballet, New York City Opera, American Ballet Theater, and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a soloist, Mike has commissioned numerous new works, with notable premiere performances at Ojai Music Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival, and the International Trombone Festival. He recently performed the long-delayed U.S. premiere of Marius Constant’s 1977 trombone concerto, Gli Elementi, with the Riverside Symphony at Alice Tully Hall.

As an instructor at Brooklyn College and St. Ann’s School, Mike encourages the development of lasting personal relationships with music, sharing the insights of his teachers, Per Brevig, Dave Taylor, Marta Hofacre, and Bob Schmalz. Mike is a graduate of Manhattan School of Music (MM) and the University of Southern Mississippi (BM).

Nuiko Wadden, harp

Nuiko Wadden is the principal harpist of Pittsburgh Opera and Ballet Orchestras as well as the Des Moines Metro Opera.  She is also a founding member of the Kassia Ensemble, and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE).

Ms. Wadden has been a prizewinner in numerous competitions, recognized by the Minnesota Orchestra (WAMSO), Ann Adams, ASTA, and American Harp Society.  As a soloist she has appeared with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Skokie Valley Symphony, the Chicago Metropolitan Symphony, and the Northwest Symphony. She serves as a substitute harpist for the Minnesota, Houston, Milwaukee and Baltimore Symphonies, and has appeared on the New Amsterdam, Cedille, Bridge, New Focus, and North/South recording labels.

About International Contemporary Ensemble

Described as “America’s foremost new-music group” (The New Yorker), International Contemporary Ensemble has become a leading force in new music throughout the last 20 years, having premiered over 1,000 works and having been a vehicle for the workshop and performance of thousands of works by student composers across the U.S. The Ensemble’s composer-collaborators—many who were unknown at the time of their first Ensemble collaboration—have fundamentally shaped its creative ethos and have continued to highly visible and influential careers, including MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey; long-time Ensemble collaborator, founding member, and 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winner Du Yun; and the Ensemble’s founder, 2012 MacArthur Fellow, and first-ever flutist to win Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Prize, Claire Chase.