Xavier Viktor Brown is from rural Maryland—a stone’s throw from the Appalachian trail and numerous Civil War Battlefields that he used to frequent and that got him interested in history. Xavier earned a BA in Music at the University of Chicago, also majoring in South Asian Languages and Civilizations. In addition to his musicology studies, Xavier studied composition with Augusta Read Thomas and Anthony Cheung. Afterwards, he earned a Master’s degree in Composition at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University studying with Michael Hersch and Felipe Lara. Xavier is now a 4th year in the PhD program at UCLA and in addition to studying with his adviser, Mitchell Morris, has earned his Master’s degree in Musicology and is currently preparing to take his Special Fields exam on queer and trans studies, Jewish studies, and Schoenberg studies in the Fin-de-Siècle Vienna. Xavier is also in the process of working with Jessica Schwartz on a Voice Studies project that incorporates oral histories he took with trans and nonbinary friends and acquaintances. In his spare time, Xavier goes birdwatching either by himself or with his friends and has a current life list (North American) bird count of 150 birds!

Abstract

The dual character of the Dying One/Soul of Arnold Schoenberg’s Die Jakobsleiter creates challenges for performance, while creating opportunities in trans* history. The Soul sings in the stratosphere and depths of the soprano range, while maintaining a quiet, covered sound. The sprechstimme choir remarks that she has “a rainbow on her dress!” and later that “he has still far to go.” The mixed pronouns recall the source material, Balzac’s bigender protagonist, Seraphita/us. For the Dying One/Soul, Schoenberg asks for a high female voice in the lower part of its register. While there are limitations to how low a high soprano can sound, the strain produced from the endeavor is largely the point, and can not be separated from a desire to trans* the Dying One/Soul’s gender. One of many critiques of trans* people today is that they are new and, therefore, not grounded in reality. However, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna was abound with the nascent queer/trans* movement and a prime locus for androgyny in the arts. Perhaps the closet of Judaism in a Christian society made Schoenberg know all too well the pain of the queer/trans* closet. And perhaps this neglected, unfinished work deserves new consideration.

Leah Batstone is a historical musicologist focusing on the intersections of political revolution and musical innovation at the peripheries of empire, particularly in late Habsburg Austria and 20th and 21st century Ukraine. She currently holds a postdoctoral fellowship from the University of Vienna’s REWIRE Programme, a Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions project COFUND supported by the European Commission, where she is working on the first monograph on Ukrainian musical modernism. She is also preparing a proposal for a handbook on the first symphony of Ukrainian composer Stefania Turkevych for the recently relaunched Cambridge Music Handbooks Series, and is co-editing the volume Perspectives on Ukrainian Music with Peter Schmelz for Indiana University Press. Her first monograph, Mahler’s Nietzsche: Politics and Philosophy in the WunderhornSymphonies, was published in 2023 by Boydell & Brewer. Her scholarship has been published in 19th Century Music, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, and Music & Letters, as well as on the American Musicological Society’s online platform Musicology Now. She received her PhD in musicology from McGill University in 2019 and holds a Master’s in musicology from the University of Oxford. She is the founder and creative director of the annual Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival in New York City.

Abstract

The wide-ranging sites of engagement with Arnold Schoenberg, while well-documented, have yet to include Ukraine. Yet, Schoenberg’s musical compositions and techniques made their mark on early-twentieth century composers working within the contemporary borders of the Ukrainian nation state, dovetailing with harmonic experimentations already taking place and contributing to a unique musical marriage of tradition and revolution. The imprint of free atonality and dodecaphonic techniques can be found in musical works written in the 1910s and ’20s in Lviv (or Lemberg, as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), Kyiv, and Kharkiv, a burgeoning capital of modernism. Through the exploration of several case studies, I sketch the particularities of atonal and serial composition in Ukraine in the early 20^th century, starting with the music of composers who engaged with Schoenberg, personally and ideologically. Beginning with the compositions of early twelve-tone innovator Yukhym Holyshev (Yefim Golyshev) and Schoenberg disciples Mykola (Nikolai) Roslavets and Jozef Koffler, I discuss how differing encounters with the Viennese composer help to define a Ukrainian musical modernism and create a framework for approaching the music of a variety of composers including Borys Liatoshynsky, Levko Revutsky, Pylyp Kozytsky, Stefania Turkevych, Yuliy Meytus and others.

Gwyneth Bravo holds a Ph.D. in Historical Musicology from UCLA and is Assistant Professor of Music at NYU Abu Dhabi and Global Network Assistant Professor at NYU. A Fulbright Scholar to Germany, her research examines relationships between music, politics, and philosophy in twentieth- and twenty-first-century European and global contexts, with a focus on nationalism, migration, interwar avant-gardes, and opera after 1900. Recent publications include “Mortal Encounters, Immortal Rendezvous: Literary-Musical Counterpoints between Erwin Schulhoff’s Flammen and Karel Josef Beneš’s Don Juan,” a co-authored chapter in New Paths in Opera: Martinů, Burian, Hába, Schulhoff, Ullmann (Hollitzer, 2022); “(Re)orchestrating Histories: An Interview with Cambodian Composer Him Sophy” (Swiss Journal of Musicology, 2022), and the Grove Music Online entry on Him Sophy (2024). Her monograph Staging Death: Opera’s Mortal Imagination in Works from Prague to Theresienstadt is forthcoming and explores operas of Schulhoff and Ullmann. Her second book, Requiems to ‘Memory Spaces’: Music, Trauma, and Justice Post-1945, under review, examines diverse works, including Him’s 2017 Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia. Bravo serves as the inaugural President of the International Chapter of the College Music Society and is an appointed member of Global Diplomacy Lab.

Abstract

Engaging with music shaped by histories of conflict necessarily brings questions of memory, trauma, and justice into stark relief. Can music address the victims of violence and the muteness of the traumatized? I argue that Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw (1947) and Him Sophy’s Bangsokol: A Requiem for Cambodia (2017)—both works by composer-survivors—serve as forms of witnessing to traumatic histories, contributing to both existing and emerging narratives of the Holocaust and Cambodian genocide through what sociologist Kenneth Thompson has termed “a spiral of signification.” While trauma scholarship, informed by Holocaust histories, provides a framework for an analysis of A Survivor from Warsaw, its reframing for post-colonial and global contexts offers a critical perspective for understanding Him’s Requiem. Although not officially a reparation project, the work includes a reimagined Buddhist bangsokol funereal rite to commemorate the victims of the Khmer Rouge, who were not granted justice until 2018 when a U.N.-backed court convicted two aging leaders of the regime in a historic ruling, legally defining their crimes as genocide for the first time. Exploring tensions between legal and literary justice, I examine how Bangsokol addresses the historical trauma of the Khmer Rouge in ways the law cannot, thus serving as a ‘site of memory’ in re-orchestrating narratives of its violence more than forty years after the genocide.

Taiwanese American Bass, Ben Han-Wei Lin has been a roster member of the Los Angeles Master Chorale since the 2017-18 season. Best known for his resonant bass timbre, Lin’s voice provides a rich foundation that enhances the sound of any ensemble. Based in Los Angeles, he can also be seen frequently singing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Hollywood Bowl during the summer, and the Los Angeles Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Most recently, Lin can be seen singing the role of Daryan in The Industry’s World Premiere of STAR CHOIR, co-directed by Malik Gaines (The Industry’s Co-Artistic Director) and Alexandro Segade, composed by Gaines with Libretto by Segade. In addition to performing in live concerts as a classically trained singer, his voice can also be heard in numerous major motion pictures, sound recordings, television, and commercials with great versatility. His recent credits include The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Avatar: The Way of Water, Nope, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Turning Red.

LA based improviser, composer, and dynamic soprano, Kathryn Shuman, performs actively in studio and on stage as a soloist and ensemble singer. She is known for “her beautiful, clear tone, and excellent attention to detail” (Meredith Monk,) which can be heard on films, including: Mulan, Haunted Mansion, and Minions: Rise of the Guru. As a soloist, she has performed classic repertoire, including the Carmina Burana soprano solos, J.S. Bach’s Jauchzet and several cantatas, though she is most often realizing new works. Shuman has premiered opera and works by Juhi Bansal, and performed works of Veronika Krausas, Meredith Monk, Kaija Saariaho, John Cage, Eric Pham, and Steve Reich. Kathryn composes and produces experimental vocal music for Splice, and has had work commissioned for installation, and live performance by Luminex 2.0 and Wild Up orchestra. Shuman’s latest work explores memory, questioning, embodied & expanded vocalization, and collaboration with environment. She has performed her work at venues and festivals in California, New York, Ontario, Canada, and Berlin, Germany. Shuman is a dedicated music theory and voice faculty member at Pasadena City College and Riverside City College.

www.kathryn-shuman.com

A native of Houston, TX, Indian-Samoan tenor Solomon Reynolds has equal passions for classical music and indie pop. Solomon is a three-time Encouragement Award recipient of the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition in the Houston, Utah, and Los Angeles Districts. He recently performed as Perchik in the First Nat’l Tour of Fiddler on the Roof directed by Tony Award-winning director Bartlett Sher. In addition to stage roles, Solomon is an active singer-songwriter under his artist name Solly. Catch him singing around town with the LA Opera, LA Master Chorale, and St. James’ in-the-City. You can also tune into Classical California KUSC (91.5 FM) on Saturdays at 8:15 a.m. or 3:15 p.m. to hear his children’s radio show Saturday Morning Car Tunes.

Milena Gligic is a Los Angeles based pianist and vocalist originally from Belgrade, Serbia. She is often on music staff for productions with the LA Philharmonic and Pacific Opera Project. She also worked with the LA Opera, The Industry Opera and with Beth Morrison Projects and prepared numerous shows with artists such as Gustavo Dudamel, James Conlon, Placido Domingo, Yuval Sharon, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Thomas Adès, etc. Specialized in working with singers on vocal repertoire in many different languages, she is a vocal coach at CalArts University and at UCLA. Milena has performed with major professional choirs in the US: the LA Master Chorale, Washington Bach Consort and Collegiate Chorale in NYC. Well-versed in new and experimental music, she is a core member of the Contemporaneous ensemble. Her singing background is versatile as she studied and performed in many styles: operatic, jazz, pop and Balkan ethno. She has a Doctorate in Collaborative Piano from the University of Maryland.

Hailed by the Los Angeles Times for his ‘impressive clarity, sense of structure and monster technique’, Steven Vanhauwaert has garnered a wide array of accolades, amongst which the First Prize at the Los Angeles International Liszt Competition. Mr. Vanhauwaert has appeared as a soloist at the National Center of the Performing Arts in Beijing, Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, the Concertgebouw in Brugge, the Great Hall of the Budapest Liszt Conservatory, the Forbidden City Theatre in Beijing, Segerstrom Hall, and the National Philharmonic Hall in Kiev. He serves as co-director of the Unbound Chamber Music Festival in Mammoth Lakes, a 3-week long summer festival featuring guest artists from around the world. He also serves as Artistic Director for the Second-Sundays-at-Two series in Rolling Hills, CA. His album releases have been awarded 5 Diapasons, a nomination for the International Classical Music Awards, the France Musique’s Editor’s Choice, and 5 stars on Pizzicato Magazine. Mr. Vanhauwaert is on the faculty at the University of Utah’ School of Music and he is a Steinway Artist.

More info at www.stevenpiano.com.

Heidi has worked in the field of new music since 1974 when she began as manager of the Ojai Music Festivals, concurrently serving as assistant director at Monday Evening Concerts and producer and A/R for Delos Records.  Working with Leonard Stein, she served as assistant director of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute for fifteen years until moving to Berlin through the 90s where she served as associate and researcher of silent film music, working with conductor Berndt Heller. Upon returning to Los Angeles, she was appointed founder/director of the American Composers Forum/LA, served as general manager at Southwest Chamber Music, and as executive director of Piano Spheres from which she recently retired but remains as consultant to the director. Currently, she is general manager of the Hear Now Music Festival which focuses on presenting the music of Los Angeles composers.

Thomas M. Welsh was for a number of years the director of performing arts at the Cleveland Museum of Art and is the personal manager of Terry Riley. He collaborated with David Bernstein and Johannes Goebel on “The San Francisco Tape Music Center: 1960s Counterculture and the Avant-Garde” published by UC Press, has written for The Wire, and is currently working on a biography of Dennis Johnson.

In recital and on recording, pianist Gloria Cheng is devoted to creating multidimensional collaborations that explore meaningful interconnections amongst composers. She has been a recitalist at the Ojai Festival, William Kapell Festival, and Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, and has performed on leading concert series including Carnegie Hall’s Making Music, Cal Performances, San Francisco Performances, and Stanford Lively Arts.

Cheng has premiered countless works, including Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Dichotomie, composed for and dedicated to her, John Adams’ Hallelujah Junction for two pianos, and the late Steven Stucky’s Piano Sonata. Recent seasons have seen her in duo-recitals with Thomas Adès that included the premiere of his 2-piano Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face, with Terry Riley in Cheng Tiger Growl Roar for 4-hands, and in coast-to-coast screening/recitals of MONTAGE: Great Film Composers and the Piano, a themed recital, CD, and documentary (Breakwater Studios, Vimeo.com) featuring works written for her by Bruce Broughton, Don Davis, Alexandre Desplat, Michael Giacchino, Randy Newman, and John Williams. Cheng has curated programs that include Music at Black Mountain College for the Armand Hammer Museum; BEYOND MUSIC: Composition and Performance in the Age of Augmented Reality at UCLA, an international gathering of composers and media artists featuring Kaija Saariaho and Jean-Baptiste Barriere; and Inside the (G)Earbox, a daylong symposium at UCLA marking the 70th birthday of composer John Adams.

Cheng’s 2008 release, Piano Music of Esa-Pekka Salonen, Steven Stucky, and Witold Lutosławski, was awarded the Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance [without Orchestra]. A second Grammy nomination followed for her 2013 recording, The Edge of Light: Messiaen/Saariaho. In 2017 MONTAGE: Great Film Composers and the Piano aired on two PBS SoCal stations and won the 2018 Los Angeles Area Emmy Award. Cheng’s latest project is Garlands for Steven Stucky (Bridge), a CD featuring 32 miniatures composed in honor of the late composer. The CD proceeds will support the Steven Stucky Composer Fellowship Fund established by the Los Angeles Philharmonic to engage young composers in multi-year educational programs with the orchestra.

At Pierre Boulez’s 2003 personal invitation, Cheng joined him in performing Olivier Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques with the Los Angeles Philharmonic during its three historic final concerts in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Cheng’s concerto debut with the L.A. Philharmonic was in 1998 under the direction of Zubin Mehta. Other concerto engagements have included appearances with the Louisville Orchestra, Indianapolis, Shanghai, Pasadena, Long Beach, and Pacific Symphonies.

In Los Angeles Cheng has been a principal artist with the long-running Piano Spheres series, Jacaranda Music, and a frequent guest with the L.A. Philharmonic Green Umbrella, performing works such as Elliott Carter’s Double Concerto for Piano and Harpsichord conducted by Oliver Knussen, and John Cage’s Concerto for Prepared Piano with Jeffrey Milarsky.

Cheng received her B.A. in Economics from Stanford University, and earned graduate degrees in performance under Aube Tzerko and John Perry. She teaches at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music where she has initiated classes and programs that unite performers, composers, and scholars.

Joy H. Calico joined the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music in August 2023 as Professor of Musicology and Director of Graduate Studies in the Musicology Department. A scholar of Cold War cultural politics and contemporary opera, she has published two monographs with the University of California Press (Brecht at the Opera and Arnold Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw in Postwar Europe) and has a third under contract there, which is a theory of scene type for analyzing opera since Salome.  She is currently co-editor, with Justin Vickers, of a volume on Childhood and the Operatic Imaginary since 1900 for OUP. In recent years she has published on operas by Kaija Saariaho, Olga Neuwirth, and Helmut Lachenmann, and work on Chaya Czernowin is forthcoming. Calico is former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Musicological Society, and a current member of the international working team of the Black Opera Research Network. Her work has been supported by grants and fellowships from the ACLS, the American Academy in Berlin, the Howard Foundation, the NEH, the Paul Sacher Stiftung, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, among others.

David Lefkowitz, a native of New York City, studied music composition at The Eastman School of Music, Cornell University, and University of Pennsylvania, where his principal teachers were Joseph Schwantner, Samuel Adler, George Crumb, and Karel Husa.

As a composer Lefkowitz has won international acclaim, having works performed in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Ukraine, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Spain, Canada, Mexico, Israel, and Egypt.

Lefkowitz has won national and international competitions, including the Fukui Harp Music Awards Competition (twice), and the American Society of Composers, Authors, & Publishers (ASCAP) Grants to Young Composers Competition. In addition, he has won prizes and recognition from the National Association of Composers, USA (NACUSA), the Guild of Temple Musicians, Pacific Composers’ Forum, Chicago Civic Orchestra, Washington International Competi tion, Society for New Music’s Brian M. Israel Prize, the ALEA III International Competition, and the Gaudeamus Music Week. He has also been a Meet-The-Composer Composer in Residence.

Recent commissions include works for Melia Watras of the Corigliano Quartet, ’cellist Elinor Frey and pianist David Fung, violinist Petteri Iivonen, soprano Ursula Kleinecke and Colloquy, harpist Grace Cloutier, quintets for Pacific Serenades and the Synergy Ensemble, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Cantor Joseph Gole and the Cantor’s Assembly, the Harvard Westlake Orchestra, and by the Beijing City Opera Company (China’s largest and best Beijing Opera company) to write the music for a thirteen-minute solo dance-drama; the resulting BR/EIDGING OPERA for small chamber orchestra has been well received by audiences and artists on both sides of the Pacific. He has music published by MMB Music, by Yelton Rhodes Music, Zen-On Music, Whole>Sum Music, and Lawson-Gould/Warner-Chappell Music. He has recordings available or soon to be available on Yarlung, Fatrock Ink, Japanese Victor, Yamaha, and Albany record labels.

As a theorist Lefkowitz has researched “meta-theoretical” issues such as the process of segmentation (a Component of post-tonal analysis) and the internal structure of set-classes, he has written extensively on Schoenberg’s piano music, and also has done work on music theory pedagogy, culminating with his textbook Music Theory: Syntax, Function, and Form which is expected to be published soon.