Jason Belcher (b.1987) is a composer and improviser whose music is concerned with stylistic mobility and varying degrees of performer control. He can be heard in various D.I.Y contexts throughout the Northeastern United States and is a member of the Vermont-Based ensemble Brass Balagan. In recent years he has worked with musicians such as Arthur Brooks, Anthony Coleman, Joe Morris, John Zorn, and was involved in the making of Voyage in a White Building I, a 2013 release of music by Burr Van Nostrand. Currently, Belcher teaches musicianship and history at the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned a Ph. D in Theory/Composition in 2023. 

Belcher previously attended the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Frank Carlberg, Robert Cogan, John Mallia, and the poet Ruth Lepson. His solo works and chamber pieces have been performed by vocalists Liz Pearse and Robert Frankenberry, violist Carrie Frey, Ensemble Linea, Loadbang, the Arditti Quartet, and the Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra.     

Alla Pavlova was born in Ukraine. As a girl she lived in Vinnitsa city, then moved with her Russian-born parents to Moscow in 1961. In 1975 she received her Bachelor’s Degree at the Ippolitov–Ivanov Music Institute. In 1983 she received her Master’s Degree at the Gnesin Academy of Music in Moscow. From 1983 to 1986 she lived in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, where she worked for the Union of Bulgarian composers and the Bulgarian National Opera. From 1986 to 1989 she was in Moscow, working for the Russian Musical Society Board. During that period more than 100 of her articles appeared in Russian and Bulgarian publications.

Alla Pavlova has written a number of compositions for orchestra, including eleven symphonies and the ballet Sulamith (2003–2005), based on the 1908 story by Russian writer Alexandre Kuprin about the love of King Solomon for Sulamith, a servant from his vineyard. She is also the composer of numerous instrumental and vocal works that have been performed in the United States, Europe, Canada, Japan, India, Australia, and New Zealand. Ensembles that have performed and recorded her work include the Moscow Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio, International Symphony Orchestra "Globalis", Melbourne Musicians Orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic, West Virginia University Orchestra, the Lithuanian State Symphony, Kostroma Symphony, Russian Philharmonia, String Orchestra of the Rockies (University of Montana), Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Richmond County Orchestra, Krasnoyarsk Philharmonic, North/South Consonance, Willoughby Symphony Orchestra, and more.

Soloists who have performed her music include violinists Sergei Krylov, Yury Revich, and Ivana Tomaskova, Michail Shestakov, Yaroslav Krasnikov, and Maria Lindsay, pianists Andrei Korobeinikov, Rostislav Krimer and Leonid Mararevich, saxophonists Aleksey Volkov and Michail Poroshin, trumpeter Georgy Pleskach, Bolshoi Theatre soprano Elena Zimenkova and mezzo Svetlana Belokon and flutists Leonid Lebedev and Nikolay Lotakov, and more outstanding performers. Her works have been led by conductors that have included Vladimir Fedoseyev, Alexander Vedernikov, Konstantin Krimets, Vladimir Ziva, Rossen Milanov, Tomomi Nishimoto, Gintaras Rinkevicius, Vladimir Lande, Pavel Gershtein, Sarah Penicka-Smith, Frank Pam, David Tang, and Max Lifchitz.

She has also worked with the Irish National Youth Ballet, which produced The Princess Iolanthe (2015), based on the same libretto as Tchaikovsky’s opera Iolanta, and has recently completed music for the ballet Thumbelina, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale.

Her works combine classical, romantic and contemporary styles, and sometimes include elements from gospel and popular genres.

Since 1990 Alla has lived in New York and is a member of New York Women Composers, Inc., and a member of ASCAP. During the years 1995–2000 Alla worked as a piano instructor at 92 Y School of Music in NYC.

Recordings of her work are available on the Naxos and Albany labels. Her music is regularly broadcast internationally and can be heard on such outlets as the BBC, ABC, Classic Australia, WDR Germany, Sveriges Radio Seden, Access Radio New Zealand, Radio UNAM Mexico City, 3MBS Radio Australia, Spotify, and the following domestic radio stations: WRTI, WKAR, WBJC, WFMT, WBAA, WICR, WXXI, WGUC, Classical 2r4, WRFL, WDAV, WRTI, KUZU, KMFI, KGNU, CPR, WQED, and WQXR.

trumpeter, multi-instrumentalist, creative composer/performer and author

Early Life and Education

Born on December 18, 1941 in Leland, Mississippi, Wadada Leo Smith began his musical journey steeped in the musical traditions of the South. He composed his first piece of music at the age of twelve, and at thirteen started performing with Delta Blues and other traditional bands. In high school he played in and served as assistant director of the concert and marching bands under the direction of Mr. Henderson Howard.

Smith received his formal musical education from his stepfather, composer/guitarist Alex “Little Bill” Wallace, one of the pioneers of electric guitar in Delta Blues. He was further educated through the U.S. Military band program at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri (1963); Sherwood School of Music (1967-69); and Wesleyan University (1975- 76). He has researched a variety of music cultures, including African, Japanese, Indonesian, European and American.

Creative Music and Ankhrasmation

Smith defines his music as “Creative Music,” and his diverse discography reveals a recorded history of music centered in the idea of spiritual harmony and the unification of social and cultural issues of his world. He has created Ankhrasmation, a symbolic image-based language for performers or musicians. He started his research and designs in search of Ankhrasmation in 1965, and his first realization of this language was in 1967, when it was illustrated in the recording of The Bell (Anthony Braxton: ‘Three Compositions of New Jazz’). Ankhrasmation has played a significant role in Wadada’s development as an artist, ensemble leader and educator.

Smith’s Ankhrasmation language scores have been exhibited in major American museums including The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago, which in October 2015 presented the first comprehensive exhibition of these language scores. In 2016, the Hammer Museum’s ‘Made in L.A.’ exhibition featured the scores and presented Smith with the Mohn Award for Career Achievement honoring “brilliance and resilience.” His scores have also been shown at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts in Michigan, the Kadist Art Foundation in San Francisco, The Museum of Rhythm Łódź, Poland and the Clemente Gallery in NYC.

Educator

Smith served on the faculty of The University of New Haven (1975-’76), The Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY (1975-’78), and Bard College (1987-’93). Beginning in 1994 he was on the faculty at The Herb Alpert School of Music at California Institute of the Arts, where he served as director of the African-American Improvisational Music program. He retired from CalArts in 2013. He continues to present workshops, residencies and master classes at institutions such as Harvard University, New England Conservatory, The New School, Ithaca College, and The Georgetown Day School among others.

Writings

Smith’s music philosophy Notes (8 Pieces) Source a New World Music: Creative Music was originally published by Kiom Press (1973) and translated and published in Japan by Zen-On Music Company Ltd. (1976). In 1981 Notes was translated into Italian and published by Nistri-Litschi Editori. An expanded edition of Notes (8 Pieces) was published in 2015. In 1996 Smith presented a paper on Ankhrasmation at the “Third Culture Copenhagen” conference, along with other artists, scientists and philosophers. His interview was recorded for Denmark TV and broadcast in September 1996.

Dr. Nick Virzi (b. 1991) is a composer from New York City whose work includes acoustic, electronic, and electroacoustic music, as well as intermedia pieces and multichannel installations. His recent pieces explore the relationships between humans and the natural world, numerology and rhythmic structure, and ethnography and identity. His practice includes field recording in nature preserves, orchestration of rhythmic frameworks based on complex numerical systems, and ethnographic research focused on collecting and adapting archival media as an exploration of his identity as an Italian-American. In addition to composing, he is an electric guitarist, conductor, photographer, researcher, and educator. He also hosts the international composer interview series Composer OverTime.

Nick’s music has been performed throughout the USA and internationally by leading artists such as cellist Séverine Ballon (France), soprano Tony Arnold, the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, the JACK Quartet, the Spektral Quartet, Splinter Reeds, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, Ensemble Liminar (Mexico), Distractfold (United Kingdom), the Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble, the TAK Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, and Wild Up. His work has been featured at such venues as the Juilliard School at Lincoln Center, the Center for New Music in San Francisco, and the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, Denmark. His recent projects include “Convergent Boundaries” for Percussion Trio and Electronics, an electroacoustic piece featuring field recordings from Kopački Rit Nature Park in Croatia, Crater Lake National Park in Oregon, and Mt. Etna in Sicily, Italy. This piece was commissioned by the Novalis Music and Art Festival and premiered by Line Upon Line Percussion in October 2022.

Virzi has been a featured composer at international festivals such as Gaudeamus Muziekweek (The Netherlands), the Impuls Academy (Austria), and Festival Ecos Urbanos (Mexico). He has been awarded fellowships by the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival (NYC), the Cortona Sessions for New Music (Italy), the soundSCAPE Composition and Performance Exchange (Italy), and the New Music for Strings Festival (Denmark). He has won festival competitions including the Black Bayou Composition Award, 2nd Prize at the New Music on the Bayou Festival in Louisiana. He has held residencies at the Academy of Arts and Culture and Kopački Rit Nature Preserve in Osijek, Croatia, the Sagehen Experimental Forest and Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve in the UC Reserve System, and the Poto Festival in Grass Valley, California. He has presented his music and given lectures at universities such as UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Missouri (Mizzou). He has presented his research in music theory and analysis at conferences hosted by the American Beethoven Society, the California Interdisciplinary Consortium of Italian Studies (CICIS), and the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS). He has presented his research in acoustic ecology at NYU’s Steinhardt School as part of the Precarious Sounds/Sounding Sanctuary Conference (NYC), The Catholic University of America at the Eleventh International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts and Responses (Washington, D.C.), and the Centro Cultural Vila Flor at the Ninth International Conference on the Constructed Environment (Guimarães, Portugal).

Dr. Virzi completed his D.M.A. in Music Composition at Stanford University, where he studied with Mark Applebaum and Brian Ferneyhough. He also completed his B.M. at the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Du Yun, Huang Ruo, Laura Kaminsky, and Suzanne Farrin. He recently completed the H&S Dean’s Fellowship at Stanford University, where he was a Lecturer in the Department of Music and the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA).  

From New York Times Oct. 14, 1974 page 39

Edward H. Margetson, a West Indian composer who died in New York in 1962 at the age of 70, was honored yesterday afternoon by the performance of several of his works in Alice Tully Hall. The program was presented by the Triad Chorale, directed by Noel Da Costa, assisted by the Schubert Music Society, which Mr. Margetson founded in 1927.

In some of his pieces the composer made good use of the Caribbean folk tunes he had known in his youth. They formed the material of the String Quartet that was played and gave color and melodic vitality to the well‐crafted but academic score.

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From Historical St. Kitts website

In 1919 Margetson decided to go to the United States. It meant making do with a lot of things until he had the musical education that he had dreamed of. Soon after his arrival in New York, Margetson took on the post of Organist and Minister of Music for the Church of the Crucifixion, and continued to hold that post until his retirement. He attended Columbia University in 1921, 1922 and from 1924 to 1926 where his compositions were featured in annual concerts.

Dr. Daniel Mason , the head of the Music Department at Columbia University in an article in The Herald Tribune of the 3rd May 1943 said:

There is in Margetson’s best work a directness, a wholeheartedness, and therefore a persuasive power that is rare nowadays.

In commenting on the significance of these awards, Mason noted that Margetson had been

working quietly among his people in Harlem for nearly a quarter of a century has made in his unostentatious way a contribution, far deeper than many showier ones, both to our creative musical art and to our social democracy.

Margetson’s quiet and unassuming personality encouraged confidence in those who came in contact with him. His unpretentious contributions continued to span the miles to reach his homeland. In 1948 at the height of the Thirteen Week Strike, Rufus King travelled from England to St. Kitts in order to mediate between the Trades and Labour Union and the Sugar Association. He stopped in New York to visit Margetson who expressed concerns over the plight of the island and urged the restoration of peace between the battling sides.

Failing health forced Margetson to retire as Director of the Society in 1960 and on the 22nd January 1962, he passed away leaving behind a wealth of musical compositions.