Xanthos Ensemble

Described as "the kind of vocal velvet you don't often hear in contemporary music" displaying "rock solid technique" (Boston Phoenix), Jennifer Ashe, soprano, has been hailed by the Boston Globe as giving a performance that was "pure bravura...riveting the audience with a radiant and opulent voice" for her performance in Peter Maxwell 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. She has performed with ensembles such as Firebird, Harvard Group for New Music, and New Music Brandeis, and on series such as the Fromm Festival at Harvard.

At New England Conservatory Jennifer studied with Mark St Laurent and Lucy Shelton, receiving the Doctor of Musical Arts 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. She is also faculty at the Community Music Center in Boston. A frequent performer of chamber music, she is a member of the flute and soprano duo Prana with Alicia DiDonato. Prana was honored to be chosen as semi-finalists at the 2007 Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition. She is a senior member of the Callithumpian Consort led by Steven Drury. Jennifer is also the soprano for the Boston Microtonal Society's chamber ensemble Notariotous. Future projects include a recital of contemporary German works at the Goethe Institute.

Alexis Lanz recently performed in orchestral, opera and chamber concerts for his third summer at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he was awarded the Gino B. Cioffi Memorial Prize. Previously, he has appeared at Carnegie Hall as principal clarinetist of the New York String Orchestra Seminar, and as a soloist with the New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble. Alexis performs regularly with the Callithumpian Consort and the Discovery Ensemble. In 2008, Alexis appeared at the Kennedy Center, participating in the Conservatory Project 5th Anniversary. He has performed under the batons of Stefan Asbury, Andrew Davis, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Bernard Haitink and James Levine.

Alexis studied with National Symphony clarinetist Edward Cabarga, and currently studies with Thomas Martin of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He received his Bachelor of Music Degree and anticipates receiving his Master of Music Degree from the New England Conservatory in 2010.

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. A New Music Connoisseur reviewer described her recent New York City premiere of an interactive solo violin work as “highly sophisticated microtonal playing.” She is the founding violinist/violist for the Xanthos Ensemble, contemporary chamber group now presented by Boston University, and formerly 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, with the Harvard Group for New Music, and the Fromm Players at Harvard. 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, at the Gaudeamus International Interpreter’s Competition, with Guerilla Opera, 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.

Brenda van der Merwe holds the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from Boston University, where she studied with Bayla Keyes and was String Department Assistant. Her recently completed dissertation is entitled “New Frontiers in the Art of Violin Performance: The Contemporary Study and Pedagogy of Extended Techniques for the Violin.” Her teachers and coaches have included 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. 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.

Cellist Leo Eguchi maintains a very active and multi-faceted performance schedule – he can be heard as a founding member of the Kalistos Chamber Orchestra, principal cellist of the New Bedford Symphony, a member of the Portland Symphony, Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra, as well as in frequent appearances with the Boston Pops Esplanade, Rhode Island Philharmonic and Boston Lyric Opera Orchestras. A strong advocate of new music, Leo has premiered pieces by and worked closely with many notable composers, including William Bolcom, Bright Sheng, George Crumb, Lukas Foss, Joan Tower, Ken Ueno and Michael Daugherty and often performs with contemporary music groups such as Brave New Works, Firebird Ensemble, White Rabbit, Xanthos Ensemble and ALEA III. Mr. Eguchi also loves to play chamber music – he was a founding member of the Lunaire String Quartet and often performs with groups such as Chameleon Arts Ensemble and the Walden Chamber Players. Other recent chamber music highlights include a Mendelssohn Octet performance with Ron Patterson (Former concertmaster of Monte-Carlo, Houston, Denver, and Miami symphonies, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra) and Malcolm Stewart (Concertmaster Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Leader Laureate of Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra), and participation in the Educational Bridge program – an exchange tour of Moscow and collaboration with Russian musicians. In addition to his classical career, Mr. Eguchi can be heard on stages ranging from small klezmer ensembles to stadium rock shows. As an educator and clinician, Mr. Eguchi has received much attention and is on the faculty of the Brookline Music School and until recently the University of Maine – Farmington.

A native of Michigan, Mr. Eguchi began his cello studies at the age of twelve with Eva Ell and Louis Potter Jr. He holds Bachelor’s degrees with honors in Physics and in Cello Performance from the University of Michigan, where he studied cello with Anthony Elliott and a Masters degree from Boston University, where he was a student of George Neikrug and receipient of the String Department Award for Excellence. Mr. Eguchi has performed in master classes for such cello giants as Janos Starker, David Soyer, Ronald Leonard and Leslie Parnas.

Eunyoung Kim began playing piano at the age of four, gave her first piano recital at age six, and in the same year won the national piano competition organized by The Korean Music & Art Society in Seoul. She continued playing the piano with passion and without any outside pressure. At age 15 she began studying with pianist Ha-Kyung Kim at the Sun-Hwa Arts High School in Korea. She won numerous piano competitions in Korea including the prestigious Sam-Ik Piano Competition and studied at the Korean National University of Arts in Seoul with Jong-Pil Lim, Kyung-Sook Lee, Dae-Jin Kim and Choong-Mo Kang on a scholarship from the Korean Government given to the top students of the music department. After graduating, she served as the director and a piano & music theory instructor at Bon Music Academy in Seoul.

Ms. Kim continued her studies in the United States at Boston University where she earned a Master’s Degree in Piano Performance in 2003. In that same year she was selected as a member of the American National Music Honor Society, Pi Kappa Lambda. She furthered her studies at Longy School of Music with Victor Rosenbaum, Robert Merfeld, Wayman Chin, and Jonathan Cohler; and in 2006 received a Graduate Performance Diploma in both Piano Performance and Collaborative Piano Performance with distinction.

After graduation from Longy, Ms. Kim performed as a soloist at the New Hampshire Music Festival, in addition to premiering new solo and chamber works of Koray Sazli, Caglar Arsu, Mark Berger, Mauricio Pauly and Gorge Grossman. She also performed at the Kendal Music Series as a soloist, as well as in Nagoya, Japan with organization, International Soroptimist. Ms. Kim was awarded prizes in both 2005 and 2006 in the International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition, and also in 2008 she was awarded the second prize in the Hugo Kauder International Piano Competition, and the Glady Cauthen Award from the International Beethoven Sonata Competition in Memphis in 2009.

Eunyoung Kim continues to be actively performing throughout the greater Boston area as a member of International Contemporary Music Ensemble Musica Anatolia, the Xanthos Ensemble, The Fifth Tier New Music Ensemble, and Duo group, La Scena. As a soloist and a chamber musician, Ms Kim is engaged in many different concerts in Boston, NYC, Seoul, and Istanbul for the 2007~2010 concert season.

Percussionist David Tarantino has recently been noted by the Boston Globe for his “energetic rhythmic drive” in a review of the 2010 Summer Institute of Contemporary Performance Practice marathon concert. A native of the Philadelphia area, he has performed in venues including Boston's Symphony Hall, Verizon Hall, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Cutler Majestic Theater, and the Trocadero Theatere. As an active proponent of new music, he played in the world premier performance and recording of Elliott Carter’s percussion ensemble piece "Tintinnabulation." At the Orford Arts Centre, he participated in a seminar devoted to contemporary viola and percussion works under the direction of Kim Kashkashian and Robyn Schulkowsky. He has also been a fellow at the Summer Institute of Contemporary Performance Practice at the New England Conservatory headed by Stephen Drury. Some of David’s orchestral experience includes performing with the Boston Philharmonic, Eastern Festival Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra.

Geoffrey Gordon's list of works includes orchestral and chamber music—vocal and instrumental—as well as scores for theater, film and dance. His music has been called “brilliant” (Boston Globe), “stunning” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel), “wonderfully idiomatic” (Salt Lake Tribune), “haunting” (Strings Magazine) and “remarkable” (Fanfare). Chicago Tribune music critic John von Rhein called Mr. Gordon’s lux solis aeterna, premiered in January, 2009, by the new music ensemble Fulcrum Point, “a cosmic beauty … of acutely crafted music.”

A winner of the Aaron Copland Award, Mr. Gordon was a composer-in-residence at the Aaron Copland House in
2009. His work has been funded by the Barlow Endowment, the National Endowment for the Arts, the United
Performing Arts Fund, the American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, the MacArthur Foundation, the American
Music Center, the Abelson Foundation, the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, the Mary Flagler Cary
Charitable Trust and the Bush Foundation. He has been in residence at the La Napoule Arts Foundation in Cannes, and at the historic Cliff Dweller Club in Chicago. He has been nominated for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's Elise Stoeger Prize, which honors achievement in chamber music composition; in 2003, he received the WI State Fellowship in Music Composition. He has received academic fellowship support from the University of Wisconsin, Boston University, New York University and the Guildhall in London.

During the past year, Mr. Gordon's works were performed more than fifty times on three continents. In 2009, he had two new works premiere as part of acommission project through Meet the Composer, including a new orchestral work, Shock Diamonds, for the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and a new chamber work, Ink on Paper, for the Parker String Quartet, co-commissioned by the Concert Artists Guild, which premiered in New York, at Symphony
Space, in May. Next season, he will have new works conducted by rising stars Ilan Volkov (Mediation and Allegro, for
viola and chamber ensemble, to premiere in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in December, 2010) and James Gaffigan (Concerto
for Trombone and Orchestra, commissioned for the Milwaukee Symphony and soloist Megumi Kanda, scheduled for performances in January, 2011.) Other performances are planned in London, Glasgow, Athens, Florence, New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In 2012, a double concerto for cello and harp, commissioned for Duo Arpello and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, will premiere in Jordan Hall, Boston, Gil Rose conducting. Also in 2012, legendary flute soloist Carol Wincenc will premiere a concerto commissioned for her, the Buffalo Philharmonic and conductor JoAnn Falletta.

He is the inaugural winner of the Katherine A. Abelson Fund of the Lester S. Abelson Foundation Prize, funding a
new work for mezzo soprano and mixed chamber ensemble. Fallen Eve, a setting of five texts by the poet Ted Hughes,
was the centerpiece of a major French-American music festival in Paris in May, 2007, with reciprocal performances
in Washington, DC, in April, 2008. He is a 2004 winner of a Barlow Endowment commission, through which he composed a new work for Duo46. Fancywork premiered as part of the Cortona Contemporary Music Festival, outside
Florence, Italy, on 17 July 2006. A series of US performances, including the US premiere at Sundin Hall in Minneapolis in
September, 2006, followed. Also in March, 2004, Mr. Gordon’s works were featured as part of a solo concert on the
esteemed North River Music Series at the Greenwich House in New York City. He is a recipient of an American Composers Forum (JCCP) commission, funding a new work for Brazilian recorder virtuoso Clea Galhano and harpsichordist Vivian Montgomery. Echoes of Ferrara premiered in Boston and Minneapolis in March, 2006. Cool RED Cool, a jazz-tinged chamber work for seven players, won the 2000 Andy Warhol Social Observer Prize, receiving world
premiere performances at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. (Peter Dobrin, of the Philadelphia Inquirer, called the work, “a stunner.”)

He has been featured on the cover of M Magazine, and profiled on National Public Radio. His work has been broadcast on WFMT in Chicago and WNYC in New York. Mr. Gordon has also served as an ASCAP representative in Washington, lobbying Congress on behalf of copyright protection and composers’ rights. His work has been published by Wolfhead Music, Peacock Press and the Oregon Literary Review. His work has been recorded on the Centaur label.