Tom Flaherty: Mixed Messages

Tom Flaherty

Tom Flaherty (b. 1950) is a composer and cellist who works with music for humans and electronics. In addition to the works presented here, recent commissions include Cello Concerto for cellist Robert deMaine, Looking for Answers for the Mojave Piano Trio, Recess for the Eclipse String Quartet, and Aftermath for violinist Rachel Huang. A recent recording of his Airdancing for piano, toy piano, and electronics was nominated for a Grammy in 2015.

His composition has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, American Music Center, the Pasadena Arts Council, the Massachusetts Council for the Arts and Humanities, the Delius Society, the University of Southern California, "Meet the Composer," and Yaddo. His music has been performed throughout Europe and North America by such new music ensembles as Dinosaur Annex in Boston, Speculum Musicae and Odyssey Chamber Players in New York, Earplay and Volti in San Francisco, Concorde in Dublin (Ireland), Gallery Players in Toronto (Canada), Mojave Trio, XTET and Brightwork newmusic in Los Angeles; and by such performers as soprano Lucy Shelton; cellists Robert deMaine, Maggie Parkins and Roger Lebow; violinists Sarah Thornblade and Rachel Huang; and pianists Genevieve Feiwen Lee, Nadia Shpachenko, Susan Svrček, Vicki Ray, Aron Kallay, and Karl and Margaret Kohn.

Published by American Composers Editions and G. Schirmer, Inc., his compositions have been recorded on the Albany, Bridge, Capstone, Klavier, Reference, and SEAMUS labels. He earned degrees at Brandeis University, Stony Brook University, and the University of Southern California, where he studied composition with Martin Boykan, Bülent Arel, and Frederick Lesemann and cello with Timothy Eddy and Bernard Greenhouse. He currently holds the John P. and Magdalena R. Dexter Professorship in Music at Pomona College where, despite preferring humans, he happily directs the Electronic Music Studio.

Genevieve Feiwen Lee

A versatile performer of music spanning five centuries, Grammy® nominated Genevieve Feiwen Lee has thrilled audiences on the piano, harpsichord, toy piano, keyboard, and electronics. She enjoys music that challenges her to go outside of her comfort zone to sing, speak, act, and play new instruments. She has appeared as a soloist in France, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Poland, and the Netherlands. She recorded Kurt Rohde’s ONE for speaking pianist (Innova), works by Tom Flaherty and Philippe Bodin on Elements (Albany), and appears on five other CDs. In the Los Angeles area, Ms. Lee has been a guest performer with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Chamber Music series at Disney Hall, Southwest Chamber Music, Jacaranda, Piano Spheres and the Hear Now New Music Festival. She’s a founding member of the Mojave Trio and performed in Carnegie Hall with the Garth Newel Piano Quartet. She is Professor of Music at Pomona College, California.

Maggie Parkins

Maggie Parkins is a ‘cellist, teacher, and enthusiastic chamber musician with a passion for new music which she performs with Eclipse Quartet, Brightwork newmusic, and Mojave Trio. She has performed in orchestras under conductors Seiji Ozawa, Leonard Bernstein, Simon Rattle, Oliver Knussen, and Andre Previn. She has performed at Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Banff Centre, Festival Internacional de Musica de Cadaques (Spain), Heidelberg Castle Festival, Spoleto, Taktlos Festival (Switzerland), Scarlatti Festival (Naples), Tanglewood Festival, Bach Aria Festival and Wels Festival Unlimited. As an improvising ‘cellist Maggie has worked with the Jazz Passengers, Anthony Braxton, Caetano Veloso, Bjork, Zeena Parkins, Billy Childs, and Nels Cline.

Cynthia Fogg

Cynthia Fogg has performed extensively on both viola and violin. In Boston, she played for many years with Emmanuel Music and the Monadnock Festival. Since settling in California, she has played with a variety of organizations including the Pasadena Symphony and Monday Evening Concerts and has appeared as guest violist with the acclaimed Kronos and Alexander quartets. Ms. Fogg has recorded chamber music for Naxos, Bridge, Opus One, Cambria, Klavier, and Innova, as well as soundtracks for motion pictures and television. She currently teaches at Pomona College and Pasadena Conservatory of Music.

Mark Winges

Mark Winges lives in San Francisco, where he is active as a free-lance organist and is resident composer for Volti, a new music chamber choir. His primary organ teachers were Wayne Fisher (Cincinnati) and Alex Post (San Francisco). In addition to his work at bay area churches, he has performed at the San Anselmo Organ Festival, with the Berkeley Symphony, the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, WomenSing, and recently played a concert at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Visby, Sweden. He has also been heard as both organist and composer on the nationally syndicated radio program Pipedreams.

Sarah Thornblade

Sarah Thornblade is the associate principal second violin of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. She is an avid chamber musician and a member of both the Eclipse quartet (a new music string quartet) and X-tet. She has performed with Camerata Pacifica, and the Auros Group for New Music (Boston). Her playing has been described by the L.A. Times as “rapturously winning” and has been called a “marvelously versatile violinist” by the Santa Barbara News. As a former founding member of the Arianna String Quartet, former quartet in residence at Eastern Michigan University, she won first prize at the Fischoff, Coleman and Carmel chamber music competitions. Sarah has performed throughout the country and abroad including festivals such as Tanglewood, Spoleto, Colorado Music Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, Norfolk Festival, Banff and the Portland Chamber Music Festival. She has collaborated with artists such as Gilbert Kalish, Jeffrey Kahane, Andres Cardenes, Randall Hodgkinson and Warren Jones. Sarah studied with Miriam Fried and Shmuel Ashkenasi. Currently, she is on faculty at Pomona College.

Sara Parkins

Award winning violinist Sara Parkins is an active studio musician for major motion pictures, television and recording artists. Sara has performed at the Oscars, Grammy's and other renown award shows. Composers she has worked with include John Williams, James Newton Howard, Randy Newman, Thomas Newman, Michael Giacchino, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, James Horner and many others. As a violinist with diverse interests, Sara has toured the world as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral performer. She has participated in the Bravo Festival, Vail, Strings in the Mountains Colorado, Highlands Festivals, Santa Fe Chamber Music, Oregon Bach Festival, Takttoos Festival, Tanglewood and Orchestra de Cadeques among others. Parkins was a member of The Angeles Quartet which won a Grammy for Best Chamber Music performance of the complete recordings of the Haydn String Quartets. Sara currently performs with two well known chamber groups: the internationally acclaimed Eroica Trio which tours internationally, and The Eclipse Quartet, which focuses on the music of living composers. Ms. Parkins is a graduate of The Juilliard pre-college, attended the Curtis Institute of Music and has a Masters Degree from Stony Brook University in New York.

Alma Lisa Fernandez

Alma Lisa Fernandez, violist, attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and UCLA, where she received a Master’s Degree in Viola Performance. She performs regularly with such ensembles as the LA Opera Orchestra, LA Master Chorale, Long Beach Symphony, and Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra. As a chamber musician, she has been described as “...a soulful violist. (LA Times, Mark Swed), and has performed with chamber music Los Angeles based ensembles including the Denali String Quartet, the California String Quartet, and the Capitol Ensemble. Alma is also active in the Los Angeles recording industry, having played for numerous motion picture soundtracks, television shows, and record albums. She is currently professor of viola at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA.

Vicki Ray

Described as “phenomenal and fearless” Vicki Ray is a pianist, improviser and composer. She has commissioned and premiered countless new works by today’s leading composers. Ray is a founding member of Piano Spheres and head of keyboard studies at the California Institute of the Arts where she was named the first recipient of the Hal Blaine Chair in Musical Performance. She has appeared on numerous international festivals and is a regular member of the faculty at the Bang On a Can Summer Festival at MASS MoCA. Ray has been featured on the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series as soloist and collaborative artist. Her widely varied performing and recording career covers the gamut of new and old music: from Boulez to Reich, Wadada Leo Smith to Beethoven. Her recording of Cage’s The Ten Thousand Things on Microfest Records received a 2013 Grammy nomination. Recent recordings include the premiere recording of Andrew Norman’s Sonnets with Eighth Blackbird’s Nick Photinos on the New Amsterdam label. Her recent recording of Daniel Lentz’s River of 1000 Streams – was named by Alex Ross in the New Yorker as one of the top 20 recordings of 2017.

Jeff Gauthier

Jeff Gauthier, violin, has performed with the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Long Beach Symphony, Oregon Bach Festival and Carmel Bach Festival. As an improvising violinist Jeff has performed and recorded with artists like Nels Cline, Alex Cline, Yusef Lateef, Mark Dresser, Myra Melford, Vinny Golia, Todd Sickafoose, Phillip Greenlief, and many others. He was a member of "Quartet Music" with Nels Cline, Alex Cline and Eric von Essen for 12 years. His own ensemble, The Jeff Gauthier Goatette has recorded six CDs.