CONDUCTOR Peter Askim
 
Active as a composer, conductor and bassist, Peter Askim is Artistic Director of the Next Festival of Emerging Artists and conductor of the Raleigh Civic Symphony and Chamber Orchestra. He is on the faculty of North Carolina State University and was previously Music Director and Composer-in-Residence at Idyllwild Arts.
 
As a composer, he has been called a “Modern Master” by The Strad and has had commissions and performances by the Tokyo and Honolulu Symphonies, ETHEL, Ransom Wilson and Timothy Fain. He has conducted World Premieres by Nico Muhly, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Theofanidis, Pierre Jalbert and Richard Danielpour and has collaborated with the Miró String Quartet, Matt Haimovitz, Vijay Iyer, Sō Percussion, Paul Neubauer, Tony Arnold and guitarist/songwriter Richard Thompson.
 
PIECE: TBA (World Premiere)
PHOTO CREDIT: Alexandra Grossi
 
COMPOSER Lisa Bielawa
 
Composer-vocalist Lisa Bielawa is a 2009 Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition. She takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and close artistic collaborations. Gramophone reports, “Bielawa is gaining gale force as a composer, churning out impeccably groomed works that at once evoke the layered precision of Vermeer and the conscious recklessness of Jackson Pollock,” and The New York Times describes her music as, “ruminative, pointillistic and harmonically slightly tart.”
 
PIECE:The Trojan Women
PHOTO CREDIT: Liz Linder
 
COMPOSER Pierre Jalbert
 
Earning widespread notice for his richly colored and superbly crafted scores, Pierre Jalbert (b. 1967) has developed a musical language that is engaging, expressive, and deeply personal. Among his many honors are the Rome Prize, the BBC Masterprize, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s 2007 Stoeger Award, given biennially “in recognition of significant contributions to the chamber music repertory”, and a 2010 award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
 
Jalbert is Professor of Music at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in Houston, and he serves on the Artistic Board of Musiqa, a Houston-based new music group. His music is published by Schott Music.
 
PIECE: Autumn Rhapsody
PHOTO CREDIT: David Long
 
COMPOSER Peter-Anthony Togni
 
Peter-Anthony is a musician with a mystical gaze. It is the beauty of his harmonies that sets him apart, shimmering chords that sound at once both ancient and modern. His music reflects his personal sense of the Divine. Togni spends the winter months at a retreat in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. The stillness of this part of the world is the perfect inspirational setting for his musical process. When he is at the piano, his sense of stillness can be heard; there is always space for the music to breathe, whether he is playing his own music, a jazz standard, a Coldplay song or improvising. Every Togni performance is a unique soundscape, a contemplative dance!
 
PIECE: Ofrenes (World Premiere)
PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Illsley
 
COMPOSER Paola Prestini
 
Composer, Multimedia Artist, Entrepreneur, Paola Prestini is “the enterprising composer and impresario” (New York Times). Named one of NPR’s “Top 100 composers in the World under 40,” her compositions are deemed “radiant…amorously evocative” by The New York Times. Carnegie Hall, The New York Philharmonic and Kronos Quartet have commissioned works from her. Newest projects include a work for the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Labyrinth, commissioned by the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts and VisionIntoArt, to be performed at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and described by the Washington Post as “spellbinding”; and the music theater work Aging Magician, to premiere at the Walker Arts Center and MASS MoCA in 2016. While at Juilliard, she co-founded VisionIntoArt, and she is the Creative Director of National Sawdust.
 
Paola Prestini
 
PHOTO CREDIT: Erika Harrsch
PIECE: Aria