Xanthos Ensemble

Jennifer Ashe, soprano

Jennifer Ashe has been hailed by the Boston Globe as giving a performance that was "pure bravura . . . riveting the audience with a radiant and opulent voice." The Boston Phoenix described her as possessing a "rock solid technique" with "the kind of vocal velvet you don't often hear in contemporary music" for her performance in Peter Maxwel Davies' monodrama, Miss Donnithorne's Maggot. A strong advocate for new music, Jennifer has participated in countless premieres and recordings for composers active in the Boston area and beyond. At New England Conservatory Jennifer studied with Mark St. Laurent and Lucy Shelton, receiving the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at New England Conservatory in Vocal Performance in May 2006. She also holds the Master of Music in Vocal Pedagogy from NEC. She received the Bachelor of Music from the Hartt School of Music in Voice Performance and Music Education. A current Lecturer at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, Jennifer has also taught at NEC. A
frequent performer of chamber music, she is a member of the flute and soprano duo Prana with Alicia DiDonato. She performs regularly with the Callithumpian Consort led by Steven Drury. Recent performances include two premieres with the Firebird Ensemble at NEC's Jordan Hall, and the Fromm Festival at Harvard. Upcoming projects include the performance of a new opera by Eric Chasalow at the Boston Cyber Arts Festival.

Jessi Rosinksi, flute

Flutist Jessi Rosinski has been described as possessing “virtuoso execution and robust tone quality” in New Music Connoisseur. Recently named as this year’s New Horizons Artist by the Greater Boston Flute Association, Jessi freelances actively throughout the Boston area in a variety of chamber ensembles and local orchestras. She has appeared with groups such as Collage New Music, Boston Musica Viva, Firebird Ensemble, Notariotous, and Harvard Group for New Music. Ms. Rosinski is the flutist of Boston’s Callithumpian Consort and White Rabbit, the resident new music ensemble at Harvard. She is an associate with the Atlantic Symphony for the 2007-08 season and a regular sub with the United States Coast Guard Band. She has collaborated with the Emerson String Quartet, Hartt Percussion Ensemble, and The BSC electro-acoustic octet and has worked with prominent composers such as Jennifer Higdon, Richard Rodney Bennett, Paul Elwood, and Christian Wolff. Ms. Rosinski has won top prizes at several competitions including the Pappoutsakis Memorial Competition, New York Flute Club Young Artist Competition, the National Flute Association Masterclass Competition, and the Albert Cooper International Flute Competition. Jessi is committed to bringing music to new audiences through performance outreach and is an avid teacher, holding positions at University of Massachusetts at Boston, Winchester Community Music School, and Milton Academy. Jessi has recorded for Mode and Capstone Records, and her writing has been published several times by the NFA Flutist Quarterly. She has earned degrees from the Hartt School as a fellow of the Performance 20/20 Program and New England Conservatory where she was awarded the John Cage Award for Outstanding Contribution to Contemporary Music Performance. Ms. Rosinski has held fellowships at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, National Symphony Orchestra/Kennedy Center Summer Institute, and Stratford International Flute Festival as well as participated in the Bowdoin Chamber Music Festival, and Now & Present Flute Seminar. A 2007 recipient of the Saint Botolph Club Emerging Artist award, Jessi is working on a commission with composer Paul Elwood. Her other upcoming projects include concerts with the Xanthos Ensemble and United States Coast Guard Band. Her outside interests include eating ice cream, drinking tea, jogging, practicing yoga, watching the Red Sox, playing Scattergories, and exploring Boston. Please visit her website: www.jessirosinski.com.

Michelle Doyle, clarinet

Michelle Doyle moved back to her native Boston in 2001 to play with the renowned woodwind quintet Vento Chiaro, Ensemble in Residence for the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and the Longy School of Music. She has been a member of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, the Iris Chamber Orchestra and the Des Moines Metro Opera Orchestra. Michelle is a highly sought after teacher in the Boston area and has been on the faculty of the University of Missippi and Arkansas State University. As an active chamber musician and soloist, she has premiered works by Robert Patterson, Keith Carpenter, Howard Frazin, Michael Edgerton and John Hiltgen. Michelle freelances extensively and has performed and toured as a soloist and with ensembles throughout the United States and abroad including the Boston Ballet Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Milwaukee Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Alabama Symphony, Ft. Wayne Philharmonic, Ravinia Festival Orchestra, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and at the Hochschüle fur Musik in Vienna. When not playing the clarinet, Michelle can be found teaching and practicing yoga- she is a certified Kripalu Yoga teacher. She is also an avid downhill skier and chaperones ski trips and his the slopes as often as her busy performance schedule allows. Ms. Doyle graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Music degree in Clarinet Performance and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. She received an Artist Diploma from the St. Louis Conservatory and School for the Arts where she was the clarinetist of the Wells Ensemble Woodwind Quintet. Ms. Doyle completed a Masters Degree in Clarinet Performance at Northwestern University where she studied with J. Lawrie Bloom. Her teachers have included George Silfies, Fred Ormand, John Mohler, Peter Schmidl, Larry Combs, Paulette Bowes and William Wrzesien.

Brenda van der Merwe, violin and viola

Brenda van der Merwe is an active chamber musician and soloist in the Boston area. She has concertized in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall, and at the Tanglewood Music Center. She is the founding violinist/violist for the Xanthos Ensemble, Ensemble in Residence at Boston Conservatory. As an advocate for new music, she regularly performs chamber and solo works by visiting composers, faculty and graduate fellows at Brandeis University, Boston University, Wellesley College, New England Conservatory, Dartmouth College, and with the Harvard Group for New Music. She has appeared in chamber music concerts with former members of the Mendelssohn and Brentano String Quartets, and has appeared in concert with the Boston Ballet Orchestra, Opera Boston, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, ALEA III, the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, Arizona Opera, and the Tucson Symphony. She has performed with MidAmerica Productions' Chamber and Solo Music Series in Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, at the Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival, with the AUROS Group for New Music, the Fromm Foundation Players at Harvard, and has appeared twice as a soloist in the Boston Cyber Arts Festival program for the Electronic Music Marathon at Brandeis University. She has also been a concerto soloist with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. As a member of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, she has recorded for Naxos, Chandos, Oxingale, and New World Records. More recently, she was featured on a CD of contemporary chamber music works recorded in Carnegie Hall and released on Clear Note Publications. Her teachers and coaches include Bayla Keyes, Peter Zazofsky, Yuri Mazurkevich, Nicholas Mann, Lukas Foss, Mark Rush, and members of the Peabody Trio and the Muir and Lydian String Quartets.

Brenda van der Merwe holds the Doctorate of Musical Arts Degree from Boston University, where she studied with Bayla Keyes and was String Department Assistant. She has been a member of the faculties of Music on the Hill Chamber Music Festival and Powers Music School, where she was named Chair of the String Department. She has also coached for the New England Conservatory Preparatory Division and adjudicated for their annual Concerto Competition. At the University of Arizona, she received a Master of Music as well as a Bachelor of Music, graduating summa cum laude with Honors. She was the recipient of the University of Arizona's Research Grant Award for composition of works for solo electric violin, and a recipient of the Graduate Student Final Project Fund Award, for composition of works for the Electronic Percussion Ensemble and the Digital Arts Symposium. In Arizona she was a winner of the Tucson Symphony Young Artists Concerto Competition, the University of Arizona President's Concert Concerto Competition, and the Tucson Philharmonia Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition. She performed as soloist and member of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, and served as Principal Second Violin for the Arizona Opera Orchestra. In 1996 and 1998 she was a member of the Arizona Opera Ring Cycle Festival Orchestra, which staged Wagner's Ring Cycle in its entirety.

Nicole Cariglia, cello

Nicole Cariglia is an internationally acclaimed cellist as well as teacher. As a soloist she has appeared in France, Iceland and the US and has performed in orchestras throughout the US, Europe, and Asia. Her principal teachers include Bryndis Halla Gylfadottir, principal cellist of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and Yeesun Kim, cellist and founding member of the Borromeo String Quartet. Nicole received her training at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston where she completed her B.Mus and M.Mus degrees with Distinction in Performance and Academic Honors and is currently working on her D.M.A at Boston University under the guidance of Rhonda Rider, solo cellist and founding member of the Lydian String Quartet. Nicole has performed in master classes with Truls Mørk, Erling Blöndal Bengtsson, and Colin Carr and is a regular performer with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and The New England String Ensemble. Nicole devotes much of her time as a teacher with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra’s Intensive Community Program and also maintains a private teaching studio.

Eunyoung Kim, piano

Eun-Young Kim is an active chamber and solo music performer in Korea, Japan and the US. She began her music education at age four. She won numerous piano competitions in Korea, including the Sam-Ik Piano Competition. She studied at the Korean National University of Arts in Seoul with a scholarship from the Korean Government, given to the top students of the music department, and graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Piano Performance. After graduating from KNUA, she served as a director of Bon Music Academy in Seoul. In the United States, she continued her education at Boston University, and earned a Master's Degree in Piano Performance in 2003. In the same year she was selected as a member of the American National Music Honor Society. She has premiered numerous solo and chamber works by new composers in the Boston area including Koray Sazli, Mark Berger, and Jorge Grossman. She studied music with Victor Rosenbaum, Robert Merfeld, Wayman Chin, Jonathan Cohler and Malcome Lowe. Her Traba Duo won the 3rd prize in the International Chamber Ensemble Competition of New England in both 2005 and 2006. She completed her Graduate Performance Diploma both in Piano Performance and Collaborative Piano Performance with distinction at the Longy School of Music in 2006. She has been actively performing in the Boston area with the New Hampshire Music Festival, Kendall Concert Series, Fifth Tier, and the Musica Anatolia International Contemporary Ensemble.

George Nickson, percussion

Currently an undergraduate student at the New England Conservatory of Music, this 20-year-old began his percussion training at age 12 and was a member of the Florida All-State Band for five years. He has performed marimba concerti with the Ars Flores Symphony Orchestra, The Treasure Coast Symphony and the Indian River Pops Orchestra. Solo performances have brought him to the Florida Day Of Percussion, Palm Beach Atlantic University and Florida Atlantic University.
This season's engagements include a solo recital debut at the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida, in addition to performing as a member of the National Orchestra of the Dominican Republic during the Santo Domingo Music Festival in March 2007. Selected as a member of the National Festival Orchestra, performing Mahler's First Symphony at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Lukas Foss, he has been appointed to the substitute list of the New World Symphony for the 2006-2007 season.

Jeffrey Means, conductor

Jeffrey Means has been hailed as a musician demonstrating “outstanding gifts and accomplishments” by the Boston Globe, and “charismatic and highly capable” by the New Music Connissuer. He is in the midst of a burgeoning career that encapsulates both a dedication to the best of the Contemporary Era, and a passion for music of the Common Era.

As a proponent of contemporary music, Means has led many of Boston’s new music ensembles, including the Xanthos Ensemble, Firebird Ensemble, and the Callithumpian Consort. He has led numerous world premieres, and has had the pleasure of working with some of today’s esteemed composers, including Lee Hyla, the late Donald Martino, Tamar Diesendruck, and Lori Dobbins. Projects for this season include a world premiere of Ms. Dobbins, and a concert of music by Karlhienz Stockhausen, in memory of the composer.

Eaqually secure in the traditional repertoire, Means has led music from J.S. Bach to Benjamin Britten with the various organizations that he has served as assistant for or guest conducted. Recent engagements include an appearance with the Boston Civic Symphony, and a stint as assistant conductor/chorus master for the Raylynmore Opera in New Hampshire.

Means’ background is in percussion performance, and he continues to perform professionally in Boston. He recently played on New England Conservatory’s First Monday series – a chamber music series for distinguished faculty and alumni. Later this season, Means will play music of Giancinto Scelsi with the Ludovico Ensemble, and will perform and record music of Frederick Rzewski with Mr Rzewski. Other projects this year include performances of music by Steve Reich and Helmut Lachenmann, again, both with the composers’ guidance. In past years, Means performed with many of Boston’s finest ensembles, including the Boston Philharmonic, the Hingham Symphony, the Harvard Group for New Music, and many others.

Means has taken part in numerous summer festivals, including the Casals Festival (Puerto Rico), the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Institute for Contemporary Performance in Manhattan. He holds a BM from New England Conservatory with distinction in performance. At NEC, Means was the recipient of the 2005 John Cage Award for outstanding contribution to contemporary music, and the 2006 Tourjee Alumni Award for most distinguished graduate returning for an advanced degree. He is currently pursuing a MM in conducting from NEC under the auspices of Charles Peltz. He has recorded for Mode and Albany records.