Guest Artists

ROBERT KYR (1952) has composed 12 symphonies, 3 chamber symphonies, 3 violin concerti, chamber works, and vocal music for ensembles of all types. He has received commissions from Chanticleer, Cantus (Minneapolis), Tapestry (Boston), Revalia (Estonia), Putni (Latvia), Moscow State Chamber Choir (Russia), Cappella Nova (Scotland), Oregon Repertory Singers, Back Bay Chorale (Boston), San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Yale Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Eugene Symphony, New England Philharmonic, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Third Angle (Portland), and California EAR Unit (L.A.), among others. His most recent premieres include "Ah Nagasaki: Ashes into Light" (his tenth symphony, commissioned by the Nagasaki Peace Museum in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the bomb), and "A Time for Life," an environmental oratorio commissioned by Cappella Romana, for which he also wrote the text.

Kyr's compact discs include three discs on New Albion: Violin Concerto Trilogy (NA 126), Unseen Rain (NA 075), and The Passion according to Four Evangelists (NA 098), as well as two discs on Telarc: Celestial Light: Music by Hildegard von Bingen and Robert Kyr (CD 80456), and The Fourth River: The Millennium Revealed (CD 80534).

Kyr is the chair of the composition department at the University of Oregon, and director of the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium, as well as the Music Today Festival, a biennial series of concerts and events that celebrate new music from around the world. He also directs the innovative Vanguard Concert & Workshop Series, and the Pacific Rim Gamelan.

FIREWORKS ENSEMBLE — Founded with the goal of creating a single, small ensemble capable of representing the full scope of today’s musical diversity, Fireworks Ensemble combines the talents of eight classically-trained but musically omnivorous young virtuosi who pride themselves on being able to play just about anything, regardless of style, time period, or instrumentation.

In the course of its seven year history, Fireworks has premiered over a hundred new works, promoting emerging composers worthy of wider recognition, and commissioning works by established masters such as Glenn Branca, Scott Johnson, and Nick Didkovsky. Passionate about its work with young people, the ensemble devotes a large part of its time each year to outreach activities, and has provided a doorway into contemporary and traditional classical music for hundreds of students in elementary, middle and high schools. This season, the ensemble will conduct a ten week residency based on its Cartoon program in Peekskill, New York as part of Chamber Music America's Residency Partnership program. Fireworks' three popular recordings: Dance Mix, First Tracks, and The Rite of Spring, have received airplay worldwide from WNYC in New York to Lo Otra Musica in Spain and RadioRock in Italy. This winter the ensemble will record Cartoon for Koch Classics.

Brian Coughlin has won acclaim throughout the United States as an ensemble director, a versatile double- and electric bassist, and as a genre-defying composer. Prior to founding Fireworks, he served as music director of the Hartt Sinfonietta, the Black Sheep Ensemble, and the Noise Factory new music group. Brian has performed hundreds of concerts throughout the United States in venues ranging from venerable classical music institutions such as the Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, to prominent jazz venues such as the Saratoga Jazz Festival, to major rock clubs such as Toad’s Place in New Haven. He has performed as a soloist with the Berkshire Symphony, and has premiered over fifty new works written for him.

Praised by NPR as having a “gift for melody,” Brian has written music for ensembles such as The Eugene Opera, The Berkshire Symphony, Basso Bongo, Oboist Humbert Lucarelli, Cygnus, The Pacific Rim Gamelan, Non-Sequitur, The Island Breeze Steel Drum Band, and the rock band Oneida. Brian holds both a Master of Music degree in Composition from the University of Oregon and a Master of Music degree in Double Bass Performance from the Hartt School. His teachers include Robert Black and Milt Hinton (bass), and David del Tredici, Robert Kyr, and George Tsontakis (composition).

Oren Fader has performed hundreds of concerts in the U.S., Europe and Asia with a wide range of classical and new music groups, including the Met Chamber Ensemble, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New York City Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Mark Morris Dance Group, Da Capo Chamber Players, New World Symphony, Absolute Ensemble, Poetica Musica and Speculum Musicae. A champion of new music, he has premiered over 150 works with guitar.

In addition to Fireworks, he also performs, tours and records with the new music ensembles Cygnus and Glass Farm. Mr. Fader has just returned from a three week tour performing in Turkey (Istanbul International Festival), Azerbaijan, and Tajikistan (US State Dept.). This past summer he performed works of Elliott Carter at the Tanglewood Music Festival. Mr. Fader can be heard on over 25 commercial recordings and film, including the classical guitar parts for the recent film “Everything is Illuminated.” His latest solo recordings include “Another’s Fandango”, featuring 500 years of guitar music, and “First Flight”, a disc of 10 premier solos written for Mr. Fader by New York City composers. Since 1994, Mr. Fader has been on the guitar and chamber music faculty of the Manhattan School of Music.

James Johnston is a pianist and composer whose abilities range from fresh interpretations of the classic literature to new music, improvisation, and jazz. As a recently featured soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra performing Mozart's Concerto K.453, James played a different original cadenza at each of the four performances.

James was a semi-finalist in the 1998 World Piano Competition in Cincinnati, and has performed as a soloist with the Altoona Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Nova of Monroeville, and the World Youth Symphony Orchestra of Interlochen, Michigan.

James is a founding member of PROTEUS, which made it’s New York debut in 2000 and was recently in residence at both the Norfolk and Aspen music festivals.

James's compositions have placed nationally in the Reflections Contest, and his orchestral tone poem Rooms was recorded by the World Youth Symphony Orchestra. James attended the Yale and the Julliard School, where he received his Master of Music degree. He is currently completing his Doctorate at the Manhattan School of Music.

BETA COLLIDE is a leading edge new music ensemble based in Oregon. Directed by Molly Barth (formerly of eighth blackbird) and Brian McWhorter (of Meridian Arts Ensemble), BETA COLLIDE focuses on the collision of musical art forms - from new complexity to ambient; from low-brow to high-brow; from radically extended technique to site-specific improvisation; from popular to the academy. Described as "sensational" by NPR's music critic Tom Manoff, the ensemble frequently performs with guests that stretch the concert experience [Roger Hayes painting live on large-format canvasses - Stephen Vitiello creating graphic scores for musical realization - Amit Goswami speaking about his new research in quantum physics and its relationship with consciousness - Jeffrey Stolet performing his own electronic music with Wii controllers and flashlights]. The 2008-09 season features a stunning array of virtuosic soloists and chamber musicians such as bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood, pianist David Riley, violinist Lisa McWhorter, and percussionist/sommelier Phillip Patti.

Brian McWhorter is one of the most sought-after performers and teachers of his generation. He is a member of the Meridian Arts Ensemble, which is responsible for many new works for brass and ten critically-acclaimed albums. In addition, McWhorter has worked with Sequitur, Elliott Sharp, Ensemble Sospeso, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the BargeMusic Festival Orchestra, Mark Applebaum, and John Cale (The Velvet Underground).

McWhorter is assistant professor of trumpet at the University of     

Oregon and Professor of Contemporary Music at the Manhattan

School of Music. He received degrees in music from the University

of Oregon and The Juilliard School. Hailed as a “terrific trumpeter” by

The New York Times, McWhorter’s discography spans many genres from contemporary chamber to orchestral, improvised music to pop and rock.

Molly Alicia Barth — Described as “ferociously talented” (The Oregonian), Grammy-Award winning flutist Molly Alicia Barth is an active solo, chamber, and orchestral musician, specializing in the music of today. As a founding member of the new music sextet eighth blackbird, Barth toured extensively throughout the world, recorded four CDs with Cedille Records, and was granted the 2000 Naumburg Chamber Music Award, the 1998, 2000 and 2002 CMA/ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, and first prize at the 1998 Concert Artists Guild International Competition.

Barth is the Assistant Professor of Flute at the University of Oregon and has taught at Willamette University and held residencies at the University of Chicago and at the University of Richmond.  She holds degrees from the Oberlin College-Conservatory of Music, Northwestern University, and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.