Friends of NS
Gabrielle Valladares (she/her)
Originally from Santa Clarita, California, Gabrielle Valladares is a DMA student focusing on clarinet performance. She earned her bachelor's degree in clarinet performance from the University of California–Santa Barbara, studying with Paul Bambach. With her collaborator at UC, she won local chamber music competitions and was invited to perform at the Musicale event in Montecito, CA for department donors. She received her master's degree in clarinet performance at Ohio State, studying with Dr. Caroline Hartig. She served as graduate associate and president of Clarinetwork Ensemble, Ohio State's clarinet-based performance ensemble. She has performed in Salzburg, Austria and Cividale del Friuli, Italy, for the Heart of Europe tour and for the Corsi Internazionale di Perfezionamento Musicale festival. She has also performed alongside Dr. Sarah Jaegers in ICA's ClarinetFest as a member of the DesertLake Duo. She is currently pursuing her doctoral degree with Dr. Hartig and is a graduate teaching associate for the History of Rock 'n' Roll course at Ohio State.
Sylvie Tran (she/her)
Sylvie Tran is a PhD candidate in music theory at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Sylvie holds a B.M. in flute performance from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Some of her research has involved analysis of performances of chamber music for wind instruments, exploring questions of embodiment, and, more broadly, the politics of arrangement and reorchestration. Also interested in questions of music and place in the United States, Sylvie studies musical portrayals of the American West and their intersections with race, gender, and the environment.
Karen Yeh (she/her)
Karen Yeh is an active freelance cellist based in Los Angeles, California. She is in demand as a recording artist for the motion picture industry and can be heard on the Frozen 2, It: Chapter 2, and Mulan (2020) soundtracks. An avid orchestral musician, Karen served as principal cellist in college and graduate school and currently performs with orchestras throughout Los Angeles. Mrs. Yeh received her Bachelor’s of Music degree at Northwestern University with Hans Jorgen Jensen and a Performer’s Diploma at Indiana University where she served as Janos Starker's last assistant. She completed her master's under full scholarship at the University of California Santa Barbara where she studied with Jacob Braun and Jennifer Kloetzel.
Morgan Embry (she/they)
Morgan Embry is a lighting designer, video designer, choreographer, and performer currently based in Los Angeles, California. She strives for incorporation of diverse and interactive technology into her works and her collaborative process. She received her BA in Dance from The University of Alabama and her MFA in Lighting Design at the University of California, Irvine. She is primarily a Lighting Designer for live music. Her clients include: Charli XCX, SHAED, Tessa Violet, Flying Lotus, Bryce Vine, Oliver Tree, Sofia Carson, Half Alive, and Charming Liars. She is also an active designer for dance and theatre, acting as resident LD for Willing Kompany, and Video Designer for The Next Festival of Emerging Artists. Her video content was featured at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival in the short film, Madame Modjeska’s Fairytale. Morgan is also a company performer with Living World Entertainment. Morgan is honored to have the opportunity to collaborate with such passionate and talented artists committed to this experimental search for new ways to create and tell stories.
Leah Ramillano (she/her)
Leah Ramillano is a Southern California based designer who balances work as a CAD III Associate at Mattel, Inc. and freelance scenic design. Her work varies from live and/or virtual theatre, drafting work for Mattel’s corporate tradeshows and special events, and to assisting other scenic designers.
Ezra Anisman (they/them)
I am a sound designer and composer currently based in Bellingham, Washington. I recently completed my MFA in sound design at University of California, Irvine and now I teach audio recording at Western Washington University.
I am a sound designer because I love telling stories. I'm inspired by the power stories have to move people and bring people together. I'm especially interested in nonlinear stories and other alternative story structures.
Sound and music are the tools I use to tell stories. Sound is able to affect people on a deep level and I never get bored of facilitating that process.
Kelley Ho (she/her)
Born and raised in Sacramento, Kelley Ho found her calling in the performing arts playing the flute and saxophone. At University of California, Irvine, she graduated with a BA in Drama (Honors in Directing) and a minor in Art History. After seven years of experience as a drum major including four national tours in a drum & bugle corps, she continues to teach marching band leadership students from all over the country. Kelley also has been working for Z Space's WORD for WORDcast as their line producer. She currently resides in Brooklyn with her partner and their two kittens.
Omaro Productions was founded in 2018 by Carolina Kzan (Brazil) and Irene van Zeeland (Netherlands). Joining their forces as filmmaker and choreographer they create interdisciplinary work featuring cinema and movement. The work is mostly experimental and addresses global, yet personal, issues in an intimate way.
From the impact of the current political situation in Brazil to a continuing research into the effect of interhuman relationships on our lives and the way our bodies move. The work is characterized by the constant research into the relationship of the body in motion to the movements of the camera.
https://omaroproductions.com/home
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVLeUh_oLgXhF0os8CnTT7w
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/omaroproductions/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/omaro-productions
Irene van Zeeland
Irene van Zeeland (Netherlands, 1986) started dancing when she was 8 years old. Via the preparatory education, Codarts (Rotterdam) and the Bachelor of Dance in Education in Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (Amsterdam) she went to a further education at the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) in New York City, for which she received a Foreign Fulbright Scholarship scholarship, a merit scholarship from the MCDC and a grant from the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds. She also holds an MSc in Public Administration from Erasmus University Rotterdam. Since 2008, Irene has been working as a dance teacher and maker at home and abroad, including at the Center de Danse du Marais (Paris, France), Paris Marais Dance School and Attakkalari Center for Movement Arts (Bangalore, India). She also works at Holland Dance Festival, Irene is Head of the Education and Participation department where she brings her two areas of expertise together and has the artistic and organizational responsibility for all education and participation activities.
Carolina Kzan
Carolina Kzan is a Brazilian filmmaker. Currently, she works as a freelance filmmaker in Paris and is in her Masters in Cinema at Université Paris 8. In her creations, she combines theoretical analysis and practical experimentations to merge different artforms (live action and animation cinema, found-footage videos, sound design, dance, photography) to propose new approaches and to push the boundaries when it comes to question the classical cinematographic genres such as fiction, documentary and experimental and the (nonexistent) lines that separate them.
April Dawn Guthrie
April Dawn Guthrie is an LA based composer/cellist/vocalist originally from Kansas City. Guthrie’s creative practice strives to highlight injustices, and to reflect upon and pay homage to dissenters. She received a BA (cello performance and Environmental Science) from Illinois Wesleyan University and a MFA in Cello Performance from the California Institute of the Arts. Through performing and recording cello she has worked with Björk, The Industry, WildUp, Angel Olsen, Amanda Palmer, Blue Planet II, BBC's Big Cats, the Alan Parsons Project and more. In 2019 her composition and collaboration with Matthew Paul Olmos of so go the ghosts of méxico, part three was recognized for Best Original Music/Songs of 2019 by Theatre Jones. “Music is an integral part of Olmos’ trilogy, and Guthrie’s score somehow manages to ground the story while also giving flight to the characters.”
Guthrie’s Residencies/Fellowships: Composer in Residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Nautilus/New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio, The Wyoming Festival Fellowship, Hammer Museum LA Artists Residency, Center Theater Group Playwright Workshop (collaboration), The Assembly’s Deceleration Lab, Westben's 2021 Performer/Composer Residency, and International Contemporary Ensemble's Ensemble Evolution 2021.
Learn more about April and her works at aprildawnguthrie.com
Alberto Barletta
Alberto Barletta (Italy)started dancing when I was 5 years old. Via the Damaru dance academy In Milan when he was 10 years old he joined the school of La Scala in Milan trained as a ballet dancer and at age of 17 he started a Modern/Contemporary school M.A.S (Music , Arts & show ). He started dancing with the Ailey School (New York City) and he worked for many other different contemporary dance companies world wide. His repertoire expands from (neo)classical and contemporary sources such as Rudolf Nureyev, Georges Balanchine, William Forsythe, Angelin Preljocaj and Maurice Béjart.
Since 2009 Alberto has been working as a dance teacher and choreographer for differents companies and schools (Modern, Contemporary and Cabaret) France , Italy and Europe.
Centre de Danse du Marais , Studio Harmonic , Dansez Maintenant , Centre des Arts Vivants (Paris) and many other world wide.
Since 2017 he created his own company AB Dance Company, his signature is a virtuosic and musical movement vocabulary with high aesthetic standards.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDNEejNUwiQHeM2m1If97RA
https://www.instagram.com/albe_dancer/
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/
Facebook : Alberto BARLETTA
Rita Porfiris
American violist RITA PORFIRIS has performed in major concert halls and music festivals worldwide as a chamber musician, orchestral musician, and as a soloist.
Currently the Associate Professor of Viola and Director of Chamber Music at The Hartt School, she has also been on the faculties of New York University, the University of Houston Moores’ School of Music, Florida International University, and the Harlem School for the Arts in New York. She has given master classes, lectures and clinics across the U.S., United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Iceland, Taiwan, and the Dominican Republic.
Ms. Porfiris is a member of the Miller-Porfiris Duo and the Hartt Quartet. As a founding member of the Plymouth Quartet, she was in-residence at the Ojai Festival, Mainly Mozart, Point Counterpoint, and the Internationale Quartettakademie Prag-Wien-Budapest. She was the recipient of Austria’s prestigious Prix Mercure, a prize winner in the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition and the Primrose International Viola Competition, and a laureate of the Paolo Borciani International Quartet Competition.
Learn more about Rita through her website: https://ritaporfiris.com/
Jennifer Kloetzel
A graduate of The Juilliard School and a Fulbright Scholar, cellist JENNIFER KLOETZEL has performed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia as a soloist and chamber musician. A founding member of the San Francisco-based Cypress String Quartet, Ms. Kloetzel is noted for her elegant playing and her vibrant tone. Ms. Kloetzel has been featured numerous times on National Public Radio’s “Performance Today” and her performances have been broadcast on radio stations from coast to coast.
A frequent guest soloist with orchestras, she has received the Copland Award for championing living American Composers and has commissioned and premiered over fifty works, including five concertos written specifically for her. A passionate recording artist with 36 CD releases to date, recent recordings include the entire cycle of Beethoven Quartets and Brahms Sextets on the Avie label. In 2021, Avie will release her recordings of Beethoven’s complete works for cello and piano with Robert Koenig.
Ms. Kloetzel is currently Professor of Cello and Head of Strings at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Learn more about Jennifer via her website: https://jkcello.com/
Sarah Gibson
Sarah Gibson is a Los Angeles based composer and pianist whose works draw on her breadth of experience as a collaborative performer with a deep interest in the creative process across various artistic mediums. She has received honors and recognitions such as the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra's Sound Investment composer, American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings, Victor Herbert ASCAP award, and a Chamber Music America Grant. She has received commissions from the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Tanglewood Music Center, Arco Collaborative, Aspen Summer Music Festival & School, and Seattle Symphony, among others.
Gibson’s music has been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Jennifer Koh, Departure Duo, HOCKET, and at various venues across the United States and in Europe. As a pianist, Sarah has performed with many of these ensembles as well as with wild Up, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and the Atlanta Symphony where she debuted under the direction of Donald Runnicles in 2005.
Learn more about Sarah via her website: https://www.sarahgibson-music.com/
Ken Steen
Ken Steen's music and sound art is recognized internationally for its authentic vitality, remarkable range and distinctive personal vision. Whether acoustic, electronic or some multimedia combination, his work is often characterized as being seductively gorgeous, featuring sumptuous textures of gradual yet unpredictable evolution. In the last 5 years Steen's work in various forms have enjoyed more than 100 performances on 5 continents: from Mumbai to Tripoli, Paris, Reykjavík, Buenos Aires and New York City.
In addition to composing concert music in many forms, Steen has composed a wide variety of works both acoustic and electronic for sound installation, dance, theater and web-distribution. He has received numerous awards for composition and grants from The Connecticut Commission on the Arts, The New England Foundation for the Arts, and many more.
Currently as the Associate Dean for College Programs & Professor of Music Theory and Composition, Professor Steen also serves as the Director for the Contemporary Studies Division at the University of Hartford, Hartt School of Music.
Web
Vimeo
SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.com/ken-steen
YouTube