Artists

Meira Maxine Warshauer’s music has been performed to critical acclaim throughout North America and Europe, as well as in South America, the Middle East, and Asia. Her musical palette is wide, ranging from traditional Jewish prayer modes to minimalist textures with rich melodic contours, and from joyful jazz-influenced rhythms to imaginative orchestrations of the natural world. At its core, it expresses her personal spiritual journey. As Ina Esther Joost, principal cellist with Jerusalem Symphony, observes, Meira’s music comes from a place which is beyond music. It is like a prayer from deep within the soul[and] it always evokes deep responses from the listeners.

Founded in Pinar del Río on March 22, 1997 by four doctors who practiced both professions, VOCAL UNIVERSO began their journey with a wide coverage of local and national media, participating in important shows in their locality and in the country.

Eduardo Silveira graduated from the Nivel Medio de la Escuela Nacional de Arte. Percussionist.

Joseph Sheehan composes and performs music to connect with musicians and audiences from diverse traditions. His music has been performed at prestigious concert halls, underground jazz clubs, outdoor music festivals, and intimate chamber settings. Musicians involved with his work include professional performers of jazz, classical, hip-hop, and African traditional music.

Christina Rusnak, a Northwest-based contemporary composer and explorer, is passionate about composing about place and the human experience. She works at the intersection of place, nature, culture, and history, and seeks to integrate context into her pieces. The composer also strives to create thought-provoking music that engages both the performers and the audience.

Ana Mariá Ruimonte was born and raised in Madrid, Spain, is a classical singer experienced in roles as both soprano and mezzo-soprano. She obtained her degree at Spain’s leading vocal conservatory, the Escuela Superior de Canto of Madrid in 2006, and studied further in Nuremberg, Philadelphia, and New York. She was a finalist at the International Opera Umberto Giordano competition in 2013 in Italy. Ana María appeared numerous times on Spanish National Radio and Television (RTVE) before and since moving to the United States.

Mona Lyn Reese concentrates on opera, orchestra, and choral music. Her work is melodic and accessible with an emphasis on driving or complex rhythms, movement, and contrasting textures. Her music communicates and expresses emotions traditionally or experimentally without allowing a prevailing fashion to dictate style, form, or harmony.

The TRANS-KALAHARI QUINTET (TKQ) is an instrumental Afro-jazz ensemble comprised of musicians from the United States, Botswana, and Zimbabwe. The band was formed as a quintet by Arthur “Makhwenkwe” Mengwe in 2010, but has steadily added regular members and featured artists over the past decade of collaborative work.

Houston TX based Apollo Chamber Players “performs with rhythmic flair and virtuosity” (The Strad) and has “found fruitful territory” (Houston Chronicle) through innovative, globally-inspired programming and multicultural new music commissions. Winner of Chamber Music America’s prestigious Residency Partnership award, the quartet has performed for sold-out audiences at Carnegie Hall, and it holds the distinction of being the first American chamber ensemble to record and perform in Cuba since 1960. Apollo is featured frequently on American Public Media’s nationally-syndicated program Performance Today.

Dayron Ortega graduated from the ENA in 1996 as a guitarist. His first professional musical group was "Son del Río" in Havana, of which he was the founder. A year later, he became part of the "Melao Son" project, with which he made his first International Tour in Canada. In 2000, he was called to be the founder of the project "Pancho Amat and his Cabildo del Son," in which he performed as an instrumentalist and vocalist (guitar), until the beginning of 2015. With this group he made international tours to different countries: Spain, Italy, Vienna, Holland, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, United States, Canada, Qatar, Japan, and Angola.

Tejaswini Niranjana, curator and producer, is the author of several books, including Mobilizing India: Women, Music and Migration between India and Trinidad (Duke UP, 2006), and Musicophilia in Mumbai: Performing Subjects and the Metropolitan Unconscious (Duke UP, 2020). She has also edited the anthology, Music, Modernity and the Public Sphere in India (OUP, 2020).

The music of composer Michael Murray (b. 1964) has been described as “well crafted,” “expertly and adroitly handled,” and consisting of “pleasing washes of sounds and tone colors.” Reviewers have praised his writing for voice as “excellent,” “lovely,” and “a gift to singers.” In addition to works for the concert hall, he has written music for film, theater productions, dance, and visual arts installations. He currently lives in Springfield, Missouri, where he teaches composition and music theory at Missouri State University.

A native of Texas, Mel Mobley (b. 1966) currently resides and teaches in Monroe, Louisiana. He holds degrees from the University of Texas, University of South Florida, and University of Illinois. Active as a performer, composer, and advocate of new music, Mel has been involved in new music festivals and performances all around the country. Performed here and abroad, his works include orchestral, band, chamber, choral, and electronic music. His largest work to date, a chamber opera titled Sylvan Beach, premiered in the spring of 2010. His percussion trio with piano titled [pleez], (plez), /pliz/ was released on the 2013 Revello Records compact disc, Piano Concerti with Percussion Orchestra.

Timothy Lee Miller (b. 1961) is an American composer, arranger and publisher writing unique contemporary concert music for chamber ensembles, orchestra, wind ensemble, chorus and solo voice, as well as jazz music. He has also written for several small film and television projects, however, his primary focus is concert music. He has earned degrees from the University of Tennessee (BS Music Ed, 1984), the University of Miami (MM Media Writing and Production, 1990) and Vermont College of Fine Arts (MFA Composition, 2013). His principle composition teachers have been John Anthony Lennon, James Progris, Tamar Diesendruck, Jonathan Bailey Holland, Andy Jaffe, John Fitz Rogers and Roger Zahab. He has received numerous commissions and awards, including several ASCAP awards. His works have been performed throughout the US and Europe. His music is recorded on ERMMedia, Navona and Ansonica Records, and Phoenix Classics.

Professor Hans Lewitus was born in Vienna on July 25, 1905. He began piano lessons at the age of 6, and music became a lifelong passion. While studying law he also went to the Conservatory of Music of Vienna, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in clarinet in 1930. From then on music became his career.

Alan Lewine, leader, bassist, and composer of the Alan Lewine Xtet, currently lives in Phoenix, Arizona from Philadelphia. Also the founder of Owlsong Productions (in 1982 while preparing a Thelonious Monk memorial concert in Taos NM), Lewine has performed and recorded all over the U.S., Europe, Middle East and Latin America. His influences include not just jazz, but all forms of music from Gamelan to flamenco, Zappa to Xenakis. Eclectic? Yes, and reviews have yielded high praise of the impact of these varied influences on Sephardic Treasures.

Dr. J.A. Kawarsky (b. 1959) is Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton in NJ. Dr. Kawarsky received his B.M. in composition from Iowa State University and his M.M. and D.M.A. from Northwestern University.  At Northwestern he studied with John Paynter, Alan Stout, and Frederick Ockwell. In 1982, Dr. Kawarsky conducted the Opera Company of the Negev Region in Be’er Sheva in Israel. Before coming to Westminster in 1989, he taught at Fort Hays State University, the University of Wisconsin, and Moraine Valley Community College.

Composer, cellist, and conductor, Heidi Jacob is Associate Professor of Music at Haverford College. A graduate of both the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School, she has performed throughout the United States and Europe, including the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Bedford Springs Festival, “Mozart on the Square” in Philadelphia, the Dubrovnik Festival, and on National Public Radio. She has recorded for Capstone Records, Albany Records, and Navona Records, and was featured on WRTI’s “Notes from Philadelphia,” highlighting performances of her album conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Bryn Mawr. In addition, Curt Cacioppo’s “Invocation and Dance of the Mountain Gods,” conducted by Jacob, from the album LAWS OF THE PIPE was recently selected by PARMA Recordings for inclusion on the label’s online digital release FINE MUSIC, Vol. 4.

In August 2020, Jeffrey Jacob was named Composer-in-Residence with the Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra. He has written six symphonies, three piano concertos, three string quartets, and numerous works for piano and chamber ensemble. Raymond Leppard and the Indianapolis Symphony premiered his Symphony: Winter Lightning. The London Symphony recorded his Symphony No. 3. The Moscow and St. Petersburg Symphonies premiered respectively his Piano Concertos 1 and 2 with the composer as soloist.

A man whose music has been described as “infectious , loud, and fun” (Gramophone Magazine), and “fascinatingly strange” (BBC Music Magazine), award-winning composer Arthur Gottschalk is Professor of Music Composition at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. His music is regularly performed domestically and overseas, and his works are recorded and distributed on Navona Recordings, New Ariel, Crystal Records, Summit, Capstone, Beauport Classical, ERMMedia, AURecordings, Golden Crest, MSR Classics, Ablaze Records, Naxos, Amirani (Italy), and Delage (France). His works are published by Subito Music, Shawnee Press, European American Music Distributors, Alea Publishing, Trevco Music, The International Horn Society, Potenza Music, Delage Musique, and The Spectrum Press.