SLAM Festival - Performers


			The Seattle Chamber Players enjoys a growing international reputation. For eighteen years, SCP's four core members (Laura DeLuca, clarinet, David Sabee, cello, Mikhail Shmidt, violin, and Paul Taub, flute, plus Artistic Advisor Dr. Elena Dubinets) have been passionately dedicated to introducing a wide range of composers whose styles and influences broaden the language of contemporary chamber music. Recent awards and honors include a January 2004 ASCAP/Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming; an internationally broadcast concert of our Baltic repertoire for Saint Paul Sunday; and performances in festivals in Turin, Italy (East-Ovest), Russia (Moscow Autumn), Poland (Warsaw Autumn), Ukraine (Kiev MusikFest), as well as tours and residencies in Costa Rica and Estonia. DeLuca, Sabee and Shmidt are key members of the Seattle Symphony, and Taub is a Professor of Music at Cornish College of the Arts. Dr. Elena Dubinets, currently Music Research Specialist for the Seattle Symphony, is the ensemble¹s Artistic Advisor leading its research and programming. SCP's history is marked by its commitment to the music of our time. From its commissioning of nearly 100 works by the world¹s leading composers to collaborations with the most prominent American and international creative artists, the ensemble has established itself in the vanguard of the contemporary music world. Past projects have included commissions from American composers Uri Caine, Chen Yi, Paul Dresher, Bill Frisell, Kyle Gann, Janice Giteck, Wayne Horvitz, Laura Kaminsky, Amy Rubin and Reza Vali. Many international composers have also been commissioned, including by Franghiz Ali-Zadeh (Azerbaijan), Peter Bruun (Denmark), Jorge Campos (Ecuador), Vladimir Martynov (Russia), Eddie Mora (Costa Rica), Onute Narbutaite (Lithuania), Alexandr Raskatov (Russia) and Helena Tulve (Estonia).






















			Cristina Valdes has performed across four continents and in a multitude of venues including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Recital Hall and the Kennedy Center. As an advocate of new music she has collaborated with and premiered the works of countless composers. Her festival performances include the Singapore Arts Festival, the Foro Internacional de Musica Nueva in Mexico City, the New Music in Miami Festival, and the Festival of Contemporary Music in El Salvador among others. She has also performed with the Bang on a Can "All Stars", Musicians Accord and the Parsons Dance Company. Cristina holds degrees from the New England Conservatory and SUNY at Stony Brook, and is the recipient of an Arts International Grant, the Thayer Award for the Arts, and an Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music grant. For additional information, please see www.myspace.com/littlevina

			The Dúo Juum, integrated by Gabriela Villa (viola) and Hugo Solís (electronics), is a free electro-acoustic improvisation ensemble. The duet was born with the goal of having a space for the exploration of new sonorities and new methods of interaction between the two performers and the digital media. Juum (the Mayan word for noise) gives the aesthetic direction for the duet that has played in Italy, México, United Kingdom and the United States since its foundation in Barcelona, Spain, at the beginning of 2006. There, the duet produced the CD La nave de los locos (The ship of the insane people).

			Matthew Kocmieroski is principal percussionist with the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra. He regularly performs with the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Opera and is on the faculty of the Cornish College of the Arts. He is also currently the President of the International Guild of Symphony, Opera and Ballet Musicians. In the field of chamber music he served for ten years as artistic director and percussionist of the New Performance Group, and was a founding member of both Taneko and Pacific Rims Percussion Quartet. In the Northwest he regularly performs with the Seattle Chamber Players, and has appeared at the Seattle Chamber Music Society Festivals, the Icicle Creek Music Festival, the Marrowstone Music Festival, the Methow Music Festival, the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, the Seattle International Chamber Music Festival and the Bellingham Festival of Music. Internationally he has appeared at the Bergen , Moscow Autumn, Moscow Cold Alternativa, St. Petersburg 's Sound Waves, Kiev MusicFest and Warsaw Autumn festivals. One of the greatest satisfactions Matthew has had is his work with numerous composers on their music and the emergence of a number of new works and recordings from these collaborations. He may be heard on many recordings of chamber music, orchestral music and on a wide variety of both Major and Independent motion picture, television, and video game soundtracks.

			Described as “staggeringly virtuosic” by The Strad , violist Melia Watras has been hailed by audiences and critics alike for her electrifying and vibrant performances. She performs numerous commissions and world premieres as a soloist and co-founder of the award-winning Corigliano Quartet and has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall and the Kennedy Center. Ms. Watras's debut solo CD was released by Fleur De Son (www.fleurdeson.com) and earned high praise from the media. Strings remarked, “Watras is a young player in possession of stunning virtuosic talent and deserving of the growing acclaim.” Her upcoming CD features world premieres of 5 pieces written especially for her, including Juan Pampin's Nada , which she is performing at SLAM. Watras currently teaches viola and chamber music at the University of Washington , where she serves as Assistant Professor of Music. For more information on Melia Watras, please visit www.meliawatras.com.

			Violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim enjoys a dynamic musical career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral performer, recording artist, and teacher. Widely known for his work as co-founder of the renowned Corigliano Quartet, he is in demand as a chamber musician and as a performer of new and experimental music. He is a member of Open End, a new music and improvisatory group, and makes frequent appearances as a solo performer of electro-acoustic music. Lim also holds a first violin position in the American Ballet Theatre Orchestra in New York City. As a member of the Corigliano Quartet, Lim has won numerous awards, including the Grand Prize at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition and the ASCAP/CMA Award for Adventurous Programming, and has performed in the nation's leading music centers, including Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, and the Kennedy Center. He currently serves on the faculty of Cornish College of the Arts, where he teaches violin, viola, and chamber music. For more information on Michael Jinsoo Lim, please visit www.michaeljinsoolim.com .

			Paul Taub , flute, is Professor of Music at Cornish College of the Arts where he has been faculty since 1979, and flutist and Executive Director of the Seattle Chamber Players. He was trained at Rutgers University and the California Institute of the Arts; his teachers include Marcel Moyse, Samuel Baron, Michel Debost and Robert Aitken. A founding member of SCP, Paul has had a strong musical presence in the Seattle chamber music scene as a member of the New Performance Group, Sonora and Taneko. He is an active soloist and recitalist, with extensive work in American, Soviet/Russian, and international contemporary repertoire, and has performed with SCP in Russia, Estonia, Poland, Ukraine, Italy and Costa Rica. He has given world and US premieres of music by Henry Brant, John Cage, George Crumb, Janice Giteck, Sofia Gubaidulina, Toru Takemitsu, Peteris Vasks and many others. Paul's program of twelve pieces commissioned for his twentieth anniversary in Seattle (1999) was performed in Seattle in Benaroya Hall's first flute recital and reprised in Atlanta and New York. Oo-ee, the CD of this repertoire, is available on the Periplum label. He is the Chairman of the New Music Advisory Committee of the National Flute Association and is a member of the Board of Directors of Chamber Music America.


			Walter Gray is in his 28th season as a member of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and has been featured several times as a soloist, most recently in the world premier of a new concerto by David Kechley. “Gray played with his usual intensity and flair…the cello's lyrical possibilities are realized.” (The Seattle Times) Mr. Gray attended the Curtis Institute of Music and was a founding member of the Kronos Quartet. He has been on the faculty of Western Washington University, Cornish College of the Arts and in 1998-99 he spent a highly successful year as a member of the Artist Faculty at the University of North Texas. Mr. Gray has recorded for Delos, CRI, New Albion, Klavier and Mode. He has also served as Recording Producer for the London Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Northwest Chamber Orchestra, New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra, and the New Performance Group. As a founding member of the new music ensemble Quake, Mr. Gray produced and performed on the CD Seven Mirrors, music of Chinary Ung, on New World Records. Quake was featured last spring in a performance at the Zagreb Biennale, Zagreb, Croatia. During the summer Mr. Gray has performed at the Santa Barbara Chamber Music Festival. “The evening closed with a shatteringly beautiful rendition of Samuel Barber's Sonata for Violoncello and Piano (1932) by cellist Walter Gray.” He has been Principal Cello with the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra for 22 years and recently premiered Voice of the Wood , a concerto for cello quartet and orchestra by Russell Peck. He has also participated in the Marrowstone, Waterloo, Mostly Mozart, Mt. Gretna, Olympic, Cabrillo, and Tidewater Music Festivals.

			Born in Russia , pianist Oksana Ezhokina is a much sought-after soloist and chamber musician. The winner of numerous piano competitions in Russia and the United States , Ms. Ezhokina has given solo and chamber performances in both countries. She was awarded a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2004, where she studied with Christina Dahl. In addition, she has coached chamber music with many of the world's leading artists including pianists Gilbert Kalish and Seymour Lipkin, as well as members of the Juilliard, Emerson, Orion, and Vermeer String Quartets. Ms. Ezhokina is currently serving as Co-Artistic Director and Pianist-in-Residence at the Icicle Creek Music Center in Leavenworth , Washington


			A native of Fukuoka, Japan, pianist Harumi Flesher received her degrees in piano performance from the New England Conservatory in Boston (M.M. and G.D.) and from the Elizabeth University of Music in Hiroshima (B.M. and M.M.). An avid performer of contemporary music, she has studied with Futaba Inoue, Kyoko Sato, and Veronica Jochum, and is currently completing her doctoral degree in piano performance with Craig Sheppard at the University of Washington. Her participation at international festivals includes the Northwest German Academy of Music Summer Festival in Detmold, as well as the Adriatic Chamber Music Festival in Bonefro, Italy, and has appeared at many major international venues, such as Benaroya Hall, Boston's Jordan Hall and the Tokyo Bunkakaikan. She has performed with international ensembles such as the Krakow Chamber Music Orchestra and the Razumovsky Quartett Wien. In 2003, she won first prize in the Padronini Young Artist Trust Competition in Kitakyushu, Japan. More recently, she worked as a collaborative artist with the Northwest Girlchoir. Harumi Flesher currently lives in Ellensburg, and leads an active professional life as a concert pianist and collaborative artist.

			AMY RUBIN, pianist and composer, has written and performed music in all genres - for the concert stage, jazz ensemble, film, television and theater, both in the U.S. and abroad. Her fearless eclecticism and desire to embrace all music regardless of style have brought her recent awards including the Washington State Artist Trust Fellowship, the King County Special Projects Award, the Jack Straw Artist Support Award and commission funds from the Seattle Arts Commission. She was a Senior Fulbright Professor In Ghana and has taught at the Cornish College of the Arts, Fairleigh Dickinson University and SUNY at Stonybrook. She has recorded numerous cds of her work on labels including Mode, Koch, and CRI. In the last few years she has enjoyed creating and sharing music with the Seattle Chamber Players, Seattle Chamber Music Society and Seattle Symphony. More information about Amy can be found at www.amydrubin.com


			Prior to joining the Seattle Symphony, where he is currently acting principal oboe, Ben Hausmann served as principal oboe of L'Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, the Florida Philharmonic, and the Savannah Symphony. He has been a frequent guest of the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and Baltimore Symphony. Hausmann's summer festivals include the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, where he is currently principal oboe, and the Aspen Music Festival, where his performance of Richard Strauss' Oboe Concerto was broadcast on National Public Radio.


			Before moving to Washington in 2003, pianist Chadd Merrigan had developed a rapport with audiences in his native Rochester, in his academic home Long Island, and in Tampa, Florida, where he taught at the University of South Florida. Like many pianists, he filled split roles of performer/teacher, chamber musician/soloist, and traditional/contemporary performer, alternating between concerto performances with the Rochester Philharmonic or the Tampa Bay Symphony with weekly programs of chamber music at the Kinhaven Music School in Vermont or with the active musicians in west Florida. Though perfectly content playing Beethoven and Brahms, his rarer interest is in playing 20th-century American music, from Ives, Copland, and Barber to Carter, Wuorinen, and Harbison. He received a doctorate degree in music from S.U.N.Y. at Stony Brook where he studied with Gilbert Kalish, but he now works as a software developer at Microsoft, where they really couldn't care less.