JP Jofre, Special Guest Artist
Argentinean bandoneon player and composer JP Jofre has been repeatedly highlighted by The New York Times and praised as one of today’s leading artists by Great Performers at Lincoln Center. His music has been recorded by 16 Grammy Winner Paquito D’ Rivera and choreographed/performed by ballet star Herman Cornejo (Principal Dancer of the American Ballet Theatre). A recipient of the National Prize of the Arts grant in Argentina, Mr. Jofre has taken his form of contemporary tango to some of the most important venues in Asia, Europe, America and the Caribbean as soloist and composer. He has collaborated with many famous musicians in a wide range of musical styles, including Paquito D’Rivera, Kathryn Stott, Symphony Silicon Valley, Santa Rosa Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Argentina, Sacramento Philharmonic, Philippe Quint, Fernando Otero, New York Jazzharmonic, Dallas Symphony, Napa Symphony and Fred Sturm, among others.
Mr. Jofre has received commissions and been part of many prestigious festivals including the Celebrity Series of Boston, Umbria Jazz Festival, Great Performers at Lincoln Center, Seattle Town Hall’s Global Rhythms, Belgorod Music Festival, Sudtirol Jazz Festival, and Seoul Arts Center, among others. For the world premiere of his Bandoneon Concerto, The Mercury News wrote: “…he is an electrifying composer-bandoneon player.” In 2012, Mr. Jofre was invited by the Free University of Bolzano and SudTirol Festival (Italy) to perform in homage to Argentinean Nobel Peace Prize winner, Adolfo Perez Esquivel. He proudly uses the New AA by Bandonion Fabrik Klingenthal.
www.JPJofre.com
Photo credit: Mihyun Kang
Ahn Trio, Special Guest Artists
The Ahn Trio, hailed as “exacting and exciting musicians” by the LA Times, is made up of three Juilliard-trained Korean-American sisters: pianist Lucia, violinist Angella, and cellist Maria. The Trio has released eight critically acclaimed albums on EMI Classics, Sony, and Warner. Their ever-evolving vision of being a 21st century musician, and wideranging collaborations with modern dance companies including a B-boy dance company, film directors, rock bands, DJs, singers, and more led to the nickname “Classical revolutionaries” given to them by New York Newsday. Pat Metheny and other luminary composers such as Michael Nyman, Maurice Jarre, Mark O’Connor, DJ Spooky have written music for them. In 2011, President Obama invited Ahn Trio to perform at the White House. The Ahns have performed at the prestigious TED conference and was the only Classical group to be invited to perform at iTunes Festival 2008 in London.
The Ahn Trio’s album “Lullaby for My Favorite Insomniac” released by Sony, was No. 8 in the Billboard Charts for 26 weeks, and their Dvořák, Suk, and Shostakovich album on EMI won Germany’s prestigious ECHO Award. People Magazine selected the sisters three of 50 Most Beautiful People in 2003. Their unique approach to music has taken the sisters to Buenos Aires’ Teatro Colon, Vienna’s Musikverein, New York’s Lincoln Center, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, Beijing’s Concert Hall, Istanbul’s Aya Irini in Topkapi Palace, to over 30 countries and every state in America. Ahn Trio is excited to announce the release of their new album “BLUE” in the spring of 2017. Says the Trio, “BLUE is a musical diary recorded for Lucia’s son Blue of the Trio’s past and present; being invited to jam with Prince at Paisley Park, working with Pat Metheny on the piece Yuryung he wrote for us, performing Skylife at the Obama White House, having the honor of performing at TEDWomen and meeting extraordinary female leaders from around the globe.” With their album “BLUE,” the Ahns share their pioneering and creative spirit with their old and new fans alike.
Vivian Fung, Composer
Juno Award-winning composer Vivian Fung has a talent for combining idiosyncratic textures and styles into large-scale works, often including influences such as non- Western folk music, Tibetan chant, and Brazilian rhythms. Recent works include Aqua, commissioned by the Chicago Sinfonietta and inspired by Chicago’s iconic Aqua Tower; Violin Concerto No. 2, commissioned and premiered by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra with Jonathan Crow, violin; and Biennale Snapshots, a 25-minute work for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, premiered in the VSO’s 2015 – 2016 season opening concerts this past September. Among her upcoming commissions are a new work for the Daedalus Quartet and clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois, co-commissioned by Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and Chamber Music Northwest; Humanoid for cello and electronics, for a consortium of cellists in Canada and the U.S.; Baroque Melting for the San José Chamber Orchestra; and a new orchestral work commissioned by the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa.
Ms. Fung has received numerous awards and grants, including a Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts’ Gregory Millard Fellowship, ASCAP, BMI, American Music Center, MAP Fund, Music Alive! and the League of American Orchestras, American Composers’ Forum, and the Canada Council for the Arts. She is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre. Born in Edmonton, Canada, Ms. Fung began her composition studies with composer Violet Archer and received her doctorate from the Juilliard School in New York, where her mentors included David Diamond and Robert Beaser. She was a faculty member at Juilliard from 2002 – 2010, and currently lives in California with her husband Charles Boudreau, their son Julian, and their Shiba Inu, Mulan.
vivianfung.net
Photo credit: Charles Boudreau
Mary Bianco, Guest Composer
Mary Bianco is a San Francisco, Paso Robles, Los Angeles and New York based composer of primarily Classical chamber music. She received her M..A. degree in Music Composition from Mills College in 201, her primary teachers being David Bernstein, Fred Frith, Chris Brown and Roscoe Mitchell. Her thesis is titled, “Understanding and Dealing with the Loss of Absolute Pitch as One Ages”. Mary received her B.A. with concentration in composing from Sarah Lawrence College.
Currently studying with David Garner, her previous teachers include Darius Milhaud, Ezra Laderman, Meyer Kupferman, and Irwin Stahl. Mary composed for the Salome Chamber Orchestra and the Carpenter Trio from 2011 – 2016, and currently composes for Symphony of the Vines in the Central Coast, Music for Healing, the Solera Quartet, the Manhattan Chamber Players, and various California artists. Mary is a longtime board member of The Music Conservatory of Westchester, and also serves on various educational boards both in the U.S. and abroad. She accepts selected commissions particularly for the not-for profit sector where music assists in raising the sights of funders and providing special thanks for generous ongoing supporters.
