ARCO Collaborative’s mission of inclusivity and equity in classical music extends its advocacy to emerging female and/or non-binary and/or performers and composers of color, bolstering the space it has created through the creation of new work with the expansion of ARCO’s Alone Together into an educational initiative.
Counteracting the artistic and financial crises for emerging musicians due to COVID-19, ARCO has created an intensive 3-week seminar to fund, mentor and develop female and/or non-binary and/or violinists and composers of color.
Imagined by ARCO’s artistic director, Jennifer Koh, this June 2021 educational initiative integrates private lessons with Koh, conversations with established members of the classical music field, alongside coachings with select Alone Together composers, Du Yun, Tania León, Missy Mazzoli, and Andrew Norman.
ARCO’s Alone Together Education Seminar is built on the tools and knowledge that violinist Jennifer Koh learned in her studies and professional career. Mentorship is key to musical and career development. Musical guidance and encouragement in a supportive environment give young musicians the tools to build a creative career. Professional development, beyond the foundation of excellence in performance, are key elements to building reputations and careers.
This program also provides access to musicians, managers, and publicists with experience to advise students on creating programs, curating projects and founding organizations; best practices for collaboration in chamber music and orchestra; advice on artist management and public relations; and advice on commissioning composers, and producing concerts and recordings.
This pilot program will include one 3 violin students receiving 2 private lessons, 4 masterclasses with composers, and the opportunity to participate in the Conversations Series.
In partnership with National YoungArts and ViolinChannel.com, ARCO’s Alone Together Education Seminar, will be broadcast internationally, a hub for over 440,000 violin students. Building momentum for this pilot program, Violinchannel.com will market, feature and stream each event, to be coordinated with publicists at Shuman Associates.
Each student will receive:
Private Lessons
Jennifer Koh
Coaching With Composers
Tania León
Andrew Norman
Missy Mazzoli
Du Yun
Concerts For and About Community: Presenting, Programming and Producing
Eun Lee, founder, director, programs Dream Unfinished Orchestra, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall
Patrick Castillo, composer, artistic programs, director and founder Third Sound, Hotel Elefant, Havana Contemporary Music Festival, NY Philharmonic
Composer Collaboration: Commissioning and Collaborating With Composers
Tania Léon, composer
Andrew Norman, composer
Missy Mazzoli, composer
Du Yun, composer
Kristin Lancino, president, executive director, programs Schirmer Music International, Carnegie Hall, La Jolla Music Festival
Creating a Musical Mission: Curating, Recording, and Producing Projects for Social Activism and Change
Jannina Norpoth, violinist PubliQuartet
Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, composer, curator, violist
Violinists Collaborate: Chamber Music, Conductors, Concertmasters and Concertmistresses*
Jaime Laredo, violinist, violist, conductor - Cleveland Institute of Music, NY String Seminar, Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio
Jonathan Crow, violinist, concertmaster – University of Toronto, Toronto Symphony, New Orford String Quartet, Toronto Summer Music
Jorja Fleezanis, violinist – Indiana University, Minnesota Orchestra
Career Collaboration: Artist Management and Publicists
Lisa Jaehnig, publicist Shuman Associates
Tanya Bannister, pianist, manager Concert Artists Guild
Music (written for ARCO’s Alone Together)
Du Yun Windowsills
Tania León Anima
Missy Mazzoli Hail, Horrors, Hail
Andrew Norman Turns of Phrase
A pianist and 2003 Winner of CAG’s Competition, Tanya Bannister has made a versatile career immersed in both tradition and entrepreneurship, seeking to create projects that inspire genuine connections between music and the world we live in. In addition to an active performing career, she has developed an interest in institution building in the arts over many years, principally through her work as Artistic Director of Alpenkammermusik, an annual chamber music festival in Austria, and as a founder of RoadMaps, an artistic, humanitarian and cultural venture. Born in Hong Kong, Tanya holds degrees from the Royal Academy of Music in London, Yale University, where she studied with Claude Frank, and New York’s Mannes School of Music, where she received an Artist Diploma as one of a handful of pianists selected to study with Richard Goode. She joined CAG as President in July 2018.
Patrick Castillo leads a multifaceted career as a composer, performer, writer, and educator. His music has been described as “restrained and reflective but brimming with a variety of texture and sound that draws you into its world” (I Care If You Listen) and has been presented at festivals and venues throughout the United States and internationally, including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Schubert Club, Birdfoot Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, June in Buffalo, the Santa Fe New Music Festival, Queens New Music Festival, Hot Air Music Festival, National Sawdust, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Bavarian Academy of Music (Munich), the Nuremberg Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Havana Contemporary Music Festival.
Recent season highlights include commissions and premieres by the Jasper String Quartet, Areon Flutes, the Experiential Orchestra, Apex Concerts (Reno, NV), Emerald City Music (Seattle, WA), String Theory at the Hunter (Chattanooga, TN), and the Manhattan Choral Ensemble; as well as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center premiere of Incident for violin and piano, performed by Alexander Sitkovetsky and Wu Qian. In 2017 and 2019, Patrick Castillo appeared as Composer-in- Residence at the Birdfoot Festival (New Orleans, LA). The 2020-21 season features premieres by violinist Jennifer Koh, cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han, the Delphi Trio, flautist Jill Heinke, and others.
Patrick Castillo is variously active as an explicator of music to a wide range of listeners. He has written for New Music Box, Q2 Music, Minnesota Public Radio, and other publications, and provided program and liner notes for numerous concert series and recording companies. He has been a guest lecturer at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, for whose Late Night Rose series he serves as host; Fordham University; the University of Georgia; the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; the Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass (Kentucky); String Theory at the Hunter (Chattanooga, TN); and ChamberFest Cleveland. From 2010 to 2013, he served as Senior Director of Artistic Planning of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He is founding composer and managing director of Third Sound; in 2016, he was appointed Executive Director of Hotel Elefant.
Patrick Castillo holds degrees in composition and sociology from Vassar College, where his teachers included Lois V Vierk, Annea Lockwood, and Richard Wilson. He has also participated in master classes with John Harbison, Alvin Lucier, Roger Reynolds, and Charles Wuorinen. While at Vassar, Patrick Castillo served as composer-in-residence for the Mahagonny Ensemble, a collective of performers specializing in twentieth-century music. His Requiem aeternam for mixed chorus and chamber ensemble, composed for the Mahagonny, was awarded the 2001 Jean Slater Edson Prize. He has also been the recipient of the Brian M. Israel Prize, awarded by the Society for New Music for his chamber work Lola.
The Quality of Mercy, an album of Patrick Castillo’s vocal chamber music featuring mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer, has been praised as “affecting and sensitively orchestrated… [a] gorgeous, masterfully crafted canvas” (Cleveland Classical), and is available on innova Recordings. www.patrickcastillo.com.
Jonathan Crow has been Concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) since 2011. A native of Prince George, British Columbia, Jonathan earned his Bachelor of Music degree in honours performance from McGill University in 1998, at which time he joined the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) as Associate Principal Second Violin. Between 2002 and 2006, Jonathan was the Concertmaster of the OSM; during this time, he was the youngest concertmaster of any major North American orchestra. Jonathan continues to perform as guest concertmaster with orchestras around the world, including the National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO), Pittsburgh Symphony, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Filarmonia de Lanaudiere, and Pernambuco Festival Orchestra (Brazil). Jonathan has also performed as a soloist with most major Canadian orchestras, including the Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras; the National Arts Centre and Calgary Philharmonic Orchestras; the Victoria, Nova Scotia, and Kingston Symphonies; and Orchestra London, under the baton of such conductors as Charles Dutoit, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Sir Andrew Davis, Peter Oundjian, Kent Nagano, Mario Bernardi, João Carlos Martins, and Gustavo Gimeno.
Jonathan joined the Schulich School of Music at McGill University as an Assistant Professor of Violin and was appointed Associate Professor of Violin in 2010. His current and former students have received prizes at competitions around the world, including the Menuhin International Violin Competition, OSM Competition, Shean Competition, CBC Radio’s NEXT Competition, Eckhardt- Grammatté Competition, Canadian Music Competition, and Stulberg International String Competition, and work regularly with orchestras such as the NACO, TSO, OSM, Camerata Salzburg, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Verbier Chamber Orchestra, Vienna Kammerphilharmonie, and Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Jonathan is currently Associate Professor of Violin at the University of Toronto.
In 2016, Jonathan was named Artistic Director of Toronto Summer Music, which enjoyed record attendance and rave reviews in his first three seasons. An avid chamber musician, he has performed at chamber music festivals throughout North America, South America, and Europe, including the Banff, Ravinia, Orford, Domaine Forget, Seattle, Montreal, Ottawa, Incontri in Terra di Sienna, Alpenglow, Festival Vancouver, Pernambuco (Brazil), Giverny (France), and Strings in the Mountains festivals. He is a founding member of the JUNO Award–winning New Orford String Quartet, a project-based ensemble dedicated to the promotion of standard and Canadian string quartet repertoire throughout North America. As an advocate of contemporary music, he has premièred works by Canadian composers Michael Conway Baker, Eldon Rathburn, Barrie Cabena, Gary Kulesha, Tim Brady, François Dompierre, Vivian Fung, Ana Sokolovic, Marjan Mozetich, Christos Hatzis, Ernest MacMillan, and Healey Willan. He also includes in his repertoire major concerti by such modern composers as Ligeti, Schnittke, Bernstein, Brian Cherney, Rodney Sharman, Vivian Fung, and Cameron Wilson.
Jonathan has recorded for the ATMA, Bridge, CBC, Oxingale, Skylark, and XXI-21 labels, and is heard frequently on Chaîne Culturelle of Radio-Canada, CBC Radio Two, and National Public Radio, along with Radio France, Deutsche Welle, Hessischer Rundfunk, and the RAI in Europe.
Du Yun, born and raised in Shanghai, China, and currently based in New York City, works at the intersection of opera, orchestral, theatre, cabaret, musical, oral tradition, public performances, electronics, visual arts, and noise. Her body of work is championed by some of today’s finest performing groups and organizations around the world.
Known for her “relentless originality and unflinching social conscience” (The New Yorker), Du Yun’s second opera, Angel’s Bone (libretto by Royce Vavrek), won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize; in 2018 she was named a Guggenheim Fellow; and in 2019, she was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Classical Composition category for her work Air Glow. As an avid performer and bandleader (Ok Miss), her onstage persona has been described by the New York Times as “an indie pop diva with an avant-garde edge.”
Du Yun is Professor of Composition at the Peabody Institute, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.
A community champion, Du Yun was a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble; served as the Artistic Director of MATA Festival (2014-2018); conceived the Pan Asia Sounding Festival (National Sawdust); and founded FutureTradition, a global initiative that illuminates the provenance lineages of folk art and uses these structures to build cross-regional collaborations from the ground up. In 2018, Du Yun was named one of 38 Great Immigrants by the Carnegie Foundation, and in 2019 the Beijing Music Festival named her “Artist of the Year.”
Jorja Fleezanis was concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra from 1989 to 2009—the longest- tenured concertmaster in the orchestra's history and only the second woman in the U.S. to hold the title of concertmaster in a major orchestra when appointed. Prior to Minnesota, she was associate concertmaster with the San Francisco Symphony for eight years and a member of the Chicago Symphony.
A devoted teacher, Fleezanis became an adjunct faculty member at the University of Minnesota's School of Music in 1990. She has also enjoyed teaching roles with other organizations: as teacher and artist at the Round Top International Festival Institute in Texas (1990-2007); artist-in-residence at the University of California, Davis; guest artist and teacher at the San Francisco Conservatory, where she served on the faculty from 1981 to 1989; artist and mentor at the Music@Menlo Festival (2003- 2008); teacher and coach at the New World Symphony (1988-present); and faculty of the Music Academy of the West since 2016. She has been a visiting teacher at the Boston Conservatory, The Juilliard School, The Shepherd School of Music, and Interlochen Academy and Summer Camp. She is also a frequent guest mentor at Britten Pears Center at Snape Maltings, England, in programs for both young musicians and professional orchestral violinists.
Fleezanis has had a number of works commissioned for her, including by the Minnesota Orchestra with the John Adams Violin Concerto and Ikon of Eros by John Tavener, the latter recorded on Reference Records. Her recording of the complete violin sonatas of Beethoven with the French fortepianist Cyril Huvé was released in 2003 on the Cyprés label. Other recordings include Aaron Jay Kernis' Brilliant Sky, Infinite Sky on CRI, commissioned for Fleezanis by the Schubert Club, and, with Garrick Ohlsson, Stefan Wolpe's Violin Sonata for Koch International.
Fleezanis studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Performing for over six decades before audiences across the globe, Jaime Laredo has excelled in the multiple roles of soloist, conductor, recitalist, pedagogue, and chamber musician. Since his stunning orchestral debut at the age of eleven with the San Francisco Symphony, he has won the admiration and respect of audiences, critics and fellow musicians with his passionate and polished performances. That debut inspired one critic to write: 'In the 1920's it was Yehudi Menuhin; in the 1930's it was Isaac Stern; and last night it was Jaime Laredo.' His education and development were greatly influenced by his teachers Josef Gingold and Ivan Galamian, as well as by private coaching with eminent masters Pablo Casals and George Szell. At the age of seventeen, Jaime Laredo won the prestigious Queen Elisabeth of Belgium Competition, launching his rise to international prominence. With 2009 marking the 50th anniversary of his prize, he was honored to sit on the Jury for the final round of the Competition.
In the 2018-19 Season, Mr. Laredo tours the United States as conductor, soloist and as a member of the award-winning Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, which recently celebrated its 40th Anniversary. This season on violin, he premieres Pas de Deux Chris Brubeck's Double Concerto for Violin and Cello, with his wife, cellist Sharon Robinson at the Classical Tahoe Festival in Nevada with music director Joel Revzen. Later this season, the work, commissioned specifically for the duo, will be heard with the Greensboro Symphony and Dmitri Sitkovetsky. Performances for the remaining co- commissioners, which include the Pacific and Vermont symphonies as well as the University of North Carolina School of the Arts will take place throughout the 2019-2020 season. Laredo and Robinson have greatly added to the double concerto canon with worked written specifically for them by Richard Danielpour, David Ludwig, Andre Previn, Ned Rorem and Ellen Zwilich, among others. As conductor, Laredo leads the New York String Orchestra in its 50th Anniversary for two performances at Carnegie Hall. Additional conducting engagements take him to the Portland (ME) Symphony Orchestra , The Vermont Symphony and Westchester Philharmionc. Recording releases planned for this season include The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio's premiere recording of Stanley Silverman's Trio No. 2 "Reveille" which features a vocal movement performed with Sting, and a duo recording of Violin and Cello, highlighting the rare gem of the Schulhoff Duo for Violin and Cello that Laredo and Robinson have championed in recent seasons.
In six decades before the public, through concerts in twenty-eight countries on five continents, Jaime Laredo has earned a reputation as one of the world's premiere violin virtuosi and as a conductor with a unique ability to inspire musicians to realize their fullest potential.
In addition to ongoing relationships as Music Director of the Vermont Symphony, Principal Conductor of of the Westchester Philharmonic, and Artistic Director and Conductor of the New York String Orchestra Seminar at Carnegie Hall, he brings his generosity of spirit to guest conducting roles around the globe. His programming of beloved works and connections to many generations of wonderful artists have served him well in Artistic Advisory roles for orchestras between music directors. Recent appearances as conductor/soloist include the Orchestre National de Lyon, New World Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, on tour with the Curtis Institute Orchestra & at Severance Hall in Cleveland. Acclaimed programs featuring former students, Leila Josefowicz, Hillary Hahn, Jennifer Koh, and Bella Hristova, as well as many orchestra principals, among others, are often season highlights.
Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti is a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) musician dedicated to the arts of our time. A "leading composer-performer" (The New York Times), Lanzilotti is the recipient of a 2020 Native Launchpad Artist Award. Her “conceptually potent” compositions often deal with unique instrument-objects, such as The Noguchi Museum commissions involving sound sculptures. “Lanzilotti’s score brings us together across the world in remembrance, through the commitment of shared sonic gestures.” (Cities & Health) She has been featured internationally on the Dots+Loops series and Sound School series in Australia (The Substation), and a guest composer at Thailand International Composers Festival. Lanzilotti’s current commissions include a new work for the [Switch~ Ensemble], the development and performance of which is supported by a project grant from the MAP Fund, and a new work for the GRAMMY-winning ensemble Roomful of Teeth supported in part by the National Science Foundation.
As a recording artist, Lanzilotti has played on albums from Björk's Vulnicura Live and Joan Osborne's Love and Hate, to Dai Fujikura's Chance Monsoon and David Lang’s anatomy theater. Lanzilotti’s upcoming solo performance projects include Wayfinder—a new viola concerto by Dai Fujikura inspired by Polynesian wayfinding. in manus tuas—Lanzilotti’s solo viola album debut—was featured in Steve Smith’s Log Journal Playlist (Live life out Loud), Bandcamp’s Best Contemporary Classical Albums of 2019, and The Boston Globe’s Top 10 classical albums of 2019, and was called “an entrancing new album” by The New Yorker’s Alex Ross.
To reach new audiences and share contemporary music and art, Lanzilotti has had a multifaceted career. She has published articles in Music & Literature and Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, and written program notes for the London Symphony Orchestra. Lanzilotti's dissertation is an analysis of Andrew Norman’s The Companion Guide to Rome showing the influence of architecture and visual art on the work. As an extension of the research, she created Shaken Not Stuttered, a free online resource demonstrating extended techniques for strings. Lanzilotti has also worked as a producer and curator, most recently as the Curator of Music at EMPAC. As an educator, Lanzilotti has been on the faculty at New York University, University of Northern Colorado (where she was also the director of the contemporary music ensemble), Casalmaggiore International Music Festival, and Point CounterPoint Music Festival. Lanzilotti was recently appointed Director of Community Engagement for Hawaiʻi Contemporary, connecting Hawaiʻi and the Pacific through contemporary art.
Dr. Lanzilotti studied at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Yale School of Music, and Manhattan School of Music. In addition, Lanzilotti was an orchestral fellow in the Rundfunk- Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the New World Symphony. She participated in the Lucerne Festival Academy under Pierre Boulez, and was the original violist in the Lucerne Festival Alumni Ensemble. Her mentors include Hiroko Primrose, Peter Slowik, Jesse Levine, Martin Bresnick, Wilfried Strehle, Karen Ritscher, and Reiko Füting.
As a teacher, musician and arts professional, Eun Lee has prioritized socially relevant musical experiences for audiences of all ages. From 2012 to 2016, Eun worked as a teaching artist based at the Corona Youth Music Project, the first El Sistema-inspired program to be launched in Queens, NY. During this time, Eun led classes of beginning and intermediate woodwind students, ensembles such as the Corona Children’s Chorus and Corona Children’s Orchestra, and co-designed the program’s Early Childhood Music curriculum.
Since 2015, Eun began shifting her practice from direct service towards program administration, and was employed at institutions such as the Diller-Quaile School of Music, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and Carnegie Hall. At the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, she notably expanded the Youth Orchestra of St. Luke’s enrollment and restructured the program and curriculum to better serve the musical and socioemotional needs of its students. At Carnegie Hall, Eun served as a Manager of Learning & Engagement Programs at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, where she oversaw Link Up: an international program which connects 120 orchestras with their local elementary schools through an interactive and participatory curriculum. Eun is currently employed as Senior Manager of New Initiatives at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. In tandem with her role at Lincoln Center, Eun is the executive director of The Dream Unfinished, an Activist Orchestra, which she co-founded in 2014. She has been invited to speak on The Dream Unfinished at Chamber Music America, the League of American Orchestras, the Kennedy Center, Harvard University, and others.
Tania León (b. Havana, Cuba) is a highly regarded composer, conductor, educator and advisor to arts organizations. A founding member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, she instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series, co-founded the American Composers Orchestra “Sonidos de las Americas Festivals,” was New Music Advisor to the New York Philharmonic, and is the founder/Artistic Director of Composers Now. Recent commissions include Stride for the New York Philharmonic and Ser for the LA Philharmonic, among many others. Appearances as guest conductor include the Symphony Orchestra of Marseille, the Gewandhausorchester Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica de Guanajuato, and Orquesta Sinfonica de Cuba. Her honors include the New York Governor’s Lifetime Achievement and the ASCAP Victor Herbert Awards, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the American Academy of Arts and Science. She also received a proclamation for Composers Now by New York City Mayor, and the MadWoman Festival Award in Music (Spain).
León has received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Colgate University, Oberlin and SUNY Purchase Colleges. She served as US Artistic Ambassador of American Culture in Madrid, Spain. A CUNY Professor Emerita, she was awarded a 2018 United States Artists Fellowship.
Recently deemed “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (NY Times) and “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” (Time Out NY), Missy Mazzoli has had her music performed by the Kronos Quartet, LA Opera, eighth blackbird, the BBC Symphony, Scottish Opera and many others. In 2018 she became one of the first two women, along with Jeanine Tesori, to receive a main stage commission from the Metropolitan Opera, and was nominated for a Grammy award. She is Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and from 2012-2015 was Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia. Upcoming commissions include works for Opera Philadelphia, the National Ballet of Canada, Chicago Lyric Opera and Norwegian National Opera. Her works are published by G. Schirmer.
Andrew Norman is a composer, educator, and advocate for the music of others. Recently praised as “the leading American composer of his generation” by the Los Angeles Times, and “one of the most gifted and respected composers of his generation” by the New York Times, Andrew has established himself as a significant voice in American classical music. Upcoming engagements include a year as Carnegie Hall’s Debs Composer’s Chair (2020/2021), the premiere of his violin concerto with Leila Josefowicz and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and an American tour with Kiril Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic.
Andrew’s work draws on an eclectic mix of sounds and performance practices. By turns experimental and traditional, lyrical and thorny, intimate and epic, rigorously structured and freely intuitive, Andrew’s music casts a wide sonic and conceptual net in order to explore, reflect, challenge, and address the experiences of our own time. He believes in the transformative energy of live performance, and he is often drawn to performative acts that harness the beauty, power, and fragility of risk.
Andrew has collaborated with leading ensembles worldwide, including the Berlin, Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics, the Philadelphia and Minnesota Orchestras, the London, BBC, Saint Louis, and San Francisco Symphonies, the Orpheus, Saint Paul, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestras, the Tonhalle Orchester, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, and many others. Andrew’s music has been championed by some of the classical music’s eminent conductors, including John Adams, Marin Alsop, Gustavo Dudamel, Simon Rattle, and David Robertson.
Andrew is the recipient of numerous honors and accolades. He has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, he was Musical America’s 2017 Composer of the Year, and he won the 2017 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. Andrew is the recipient of the Rome Prize (2006), the Berlin Prize (2009), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2016). He joined the roster of Young Concert Artists as Composer in Residence in 2008 and held the title “Komponist für Heidelberg” for the 2010- 2011 season. Andrew has served as Composer in Residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Opera Philadelphia, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Utah Symphony. His large- scale orchestral work Play was described in the New York Times as a “breathtaking masterpiece,” and “a revolution in music.” His most recent orchestral work, Sustain, was lauded as “a new American masterpiece” by the New Yorker and earned Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic a Grammy for their Deutsche Grammophon recording.
Andrew is a committed educator who enjoys helping people of all ages explore and create music. He has written pieces to be performed by and for the young, and has held educational residencies with various institutions across the country. He recently completed a children’s opera, A Trip to the Moon, that brings together professional musicians with amateur and untrained community members of all ages. Andrew joined the faculty of the USC Thornton School of Music in 2013, and he is thrilled to serve as the director of the L.A. Phil’s Composer Fellowship Program for high school composers. Andrew’s works are published by Schott Music.
Violinist Jannina Norpoth made her solo debut with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at age 14. Since then she has built a career as an innovative collaborative artist with a passion for contemporary music, genre-bending, and improvisation. As a soloist she has performed with the Birmingham Bloomfield Symphony Orchestra, the Casalmaggiore International Chamber Ensemble, and Ensemble 212.
Ms. Norporth is a member of PUBLIQuartet, which was the 2016–17 quartet in residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, recipient of the 2015 CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, and the winner of 2013 New Music/New Places Prize of the Concert Artists Guild Competition. She also performs and writes alongside her husband, John-Paul Norpoth, in the folk- rock group HOLLANDS.
Ms. Norpoth appearances have included Art X Detroit; the Women of the World, Montreux-Detroit Jazz, Mostly Mozart, Ecstatic Music, and Great Lakes Chamber Music festivals; Saturday Night Live; VH1’s Save the Music Foundation; and IFC's Dinner with the Band. She has performed with such acclaimed musicians as Anita Baker, Marcus Belgrave, Beyoncé, Boys II Men, Regina Carter, Sheila E., Jay-Z, Itzhak Perlman, Daniel Bernard Roumain, and Dionne Warwick; arranged for Keyshia Cole, Kat DeLuna, Keri Hilson, Akron Family, John Legend, and others; and worked under record producers Jerry “Wonda” Duplessis and Bryce Goggin.
Her upcoming projects include a new adaptation of Scott Joplin's opera Treemonisha in collaboration with composer Jessie Montgomery, and a duo recording of Prokofiev’s sonatas for violin and piano with pianist Maria Meirelles.
Recognized for intense, commanding performances, delivered with dazzling virtuosity and technical assurance, violinist Jennifer Koh is a forward-thinking artist dedicated to exploring a broad and eclectic repertoire, while promoting equity and inclusivity in classical music. She has expanded the contemporary violin repertoire through a wide range of commissioning projects, and has premiered more than 100 works written especially for her. Her quest for the new and unusual, sense of endless curiosity, and ability to lead and inspire a host of multidisciplinary collaborators, truly set her apart.
Ms. Koh’s critically acclaimed series include Alone Together, Limitless, The New American Concerto, Shared Madness, Bach and Beyond, and Bridge to Beethoven. Her most recent project, Alone Together was developed in response to the coronavirus pandemic and the financial hardship it placed on many in the arts community. This online commissioning project brings composers together in support of the many freelancers among them with the more established composers each donating a new micro-work for solo violin, while also recommending a fellow freelance composer to write their own solo violin micro-work on paid commission from Ms. Koh’s artist- driven nonprofit ARCO Collaborative.
Ms. Koh performs a broad range of concertos that reflects the breadth of her musical interests from traditional to contemporary including performances of traditional repertoire such as Bach’s Violin Concerti with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; Dvořák’s Violin Concerto with RAI National Symphony with James Conlon; Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with the Munich Philharmonic led by Lorin Maazel; and Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons with the Detroit Symphony led by Nicolas McGegan.
She has performed 20th-century works including Bartok and Berg concerti with the Milwaukee Symphony led by Edo de Waart; Bernstein’s Serenade with the Minnesota Orchestra led by Juanjo Mena and the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Lutosławski’s Chain 2 with the New York Philharmonic led by Lorin Maazel and the Philharmonia Orchestra with Esa-Pekka Salonen; Scelsi’s Anahit with the Los Angeles Philharmonic led by Gustavo Dudamel; and Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with the New Jersey Symphony led by Xian Zhang, and the São Paulo Symphony with Marin Alsop.
An advocate for music from our current millennium, she has performed Anna Clyne’s The Seamstress with the BBC Symphony led by Sakari Oramo, the Chicago Symphony led by Ludovic Morlot, and Cincinnati Symphony conducted by Louis Langrée; Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Violin Concerto with the Houston Symphony and Christoph Eschenbach, Nashville Symphony conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero, New Zealand Symphony and Edo de Waart, and Cincinnati and Gothenburg Symphonies conducted by Santtu-Matias Rouvali.
Ms. Koh played the role of Einstein in the revival of Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach from 2012 to 2014; and a particular highlight of her career was performing with St Vincent (Annie Clark) and S. Epatha Merkerson at the 2018 Kennedy Center Honors in a tribute to Mr. Glass. She has also performed for former First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama and former First Lady of South Korea Kim Yoon-ok in 2011.
Ms. Koh has now recorded fourteen albums with Chicago-based Cedille Records. She is active not only in the concert hall and recording studio, but also as a lecturer and teacher, and has been in residence at Brown, Cornell, Duke, and Tulane Universities, as well as the Curtis Institute of Music, Oberlin Conservatory and College, and University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2018, she was a keynote speaker on diversity and inclusion in classical music at the League of American Orchestras annual conference, and in 2020 spoke as part of the Royal College of Music’s Conference Orchestrating Isolation. She is currently a faculty member at The Mannes School of Music.
Ms. Koh is the Founder and Artistic Director of ARCO Collaborative, an artist-driven nonprofit that advocates for inclusivity in classical music. Founded in 2014 by Jennifer Koh, ARCO Collaborative commissions, develops, and produces new musical works that highlight artists of color and women composers in collaborations that bring forth stories previously unheard in western art forms.
