FREE—no tickets required
You’ll find yourself at the very center of contemporary music-making with a special free concert featuring new works by three young composers—Annika Socolofsky, Costas Dafnis, and Maya Miro Johnson—conducted in rotation by six emerging conductors, the culmination of the prestigious Conductors/Composers Workshop. The concert is a chance to hear new voices now shaping the future of orchestral music, and a fascinating look at variations offered by a conductor’s interpretation. Don’t miss the excitement when the creative sparks fly!
2019 COMPOSERS
COSTAS DAFNIS
Costas Dafnis (b. 1989 Athens, Greece) is a composer and artist based in California. His work has been awarded by New Music USA, the American Prize and International Music Prize for Excellence in Composition. His 2019 set of Cajun-language art songs is the subject of soprano Nancy Carey’s series of DMA lecture recitals and other upcoming premieres include works for the SoCal Brass Consortium, Black Tulip Chorale and the Dallas Winds. His music for media will be heard in the indie feature Overwhelm The Sky and CR Coppola’s VR short, Universe At Play. Costas conducts the New Vision Choir, a Bay Area chorus made up of mostly Pacific Island singers, and lectures in film at San Francisco Art Institute. For more information, go to www.CostasDafnis.com
MAYA MIRO JOHNSON
Maya Miro Johnson (b. 2001) is an emerging conductor-composer who made her professional debut in February 2019 with a commission from The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Tito Muñoz. Maya began conducting studies with Rei Hotoda at age 15 and shortly thereafter was selected as Apprentice Conductor in the National Youth Orchestra of the USA, 2017. She was Luna Composition Lab’s 2017/18 Griselda Villanueva Fellow and attended the 2018 Boston University Tanglewood Institute as an ASCAP Scholar. She recently conducted premieres of her own works at National Sawdust, Roulette, and UCLA. Awards include 2019 National Merit Scholarship Corporation Finalist, 2019 YoungArts Winner, and 2019 NextNotes Winner. This summer will include premieres at the Fresh Inc, soundSCAPE, and Cabrillo Festivals, as well as a commission from bassoonist Brad Balliett. Maya currently studies conducting with Conner Gray Covington, composition with Devin Maxwell, and violin with Yuki MacQueen. Maya is grateful to all her mentors, including Marin Alsop, Nico Muhly, Andrew Norman, Kristin Kuster, Simon Holt, and Missy Mazzoli. She will begin studies at the Curtis Institute of Music this fall. In her ever-dwindling spare time, Maya enjoys film noir, poetry, philosophy, and dance. www.mayamirojohnson.com
ANNIKA SOCOLOFSKY
Annika Socolofsky is a US composer and avant-folk vocalist. She has collaborated with artists such as the Rochester Philharmonic, Albany Symphony, Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, Eighth Blackbird, Third Coast Percussion, So Percussion, and sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird. She is a recipient of a Fromm Foundation Commission, Cortona Prize, and a BMI Student Composer Award, and has been awarded fellowships to the Blackbird Creative Lab, Banff Centre, Bang on a Can, Cultivate at Copland House, and Brevard Music Center.
Her research focuses on physiology in contemporary vocal music, using the music of Dolly Parton to create a pedagogical approach to composition that is inclusive of many vocal styles and techniques, evading the age-old false dichotomy of straight tone vs. bel canto vocal style. Annika is a doctoral candidate in composition at Princeton University. She holds an MA in composition the University of Michigan. www.aksocolofsky.com
