Run AMOC! Festival

Described by The Washington Post as “revitalizing the world of contemporary music” with “jaw-dropping virtuosity”, Jonny Allen is a Brooklyn-based percussionist whose passion for music is contagious. He has won prizes at both the International Chamber Music Competition and the International Marimba Competition in Salzburg, giving performances at Carnegie Hall and Schloss Hoch in Flachau, Austria, respectively. Jonny has also performed as a drum set soloist with Ghana’s National Symphony Orchestra at the National Theatre in Accra. He performs across the United States and internationally with his percussion quartet, Sandbox, and his jazz trio, Triplepoint, and is the percussion director at Choate Rosemary Hall. Jonny is sponsored by Remo Drumheads and by the stick and mallet company Vic Firth. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music, as well as a Master’s degree and Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music, where he performed with the world-class Yale Percussion Group.

Matthew Aucoin is an American composer, conductor, writer, and pianist. He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2018, and is both Artist-in-Residence at Los Angeles Opera and co-artistic director of the American Modern Opera Company. Aucoin is currently at work on a new opera, Eurydice, which is a collaboration with the playwright Sarah Ruhl. Eurydice has been co-commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera and the Los Angeles Opera.

Aucoin’s orchestral and chamber music has been commissioned and performed by such artists as Yo-Yo Ma, Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra, Salzburg’s Mozarteum Orchestra, the Brentano Quartet, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, tenor Paul Appleby, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, and Chanticleer. Aucoin’s operas include Crossing (2015), commissioned by the American Repertory Theater; and Second Nature (2015), a chamber opera for the young, commissioned by the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Crossing has gone on to productions at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Los Angeles Opera; Second Nature has been performed all over the continent, including productions at the Canadian Opera Company and the Music Academy of the West.

In addition to his work in Los Angeles, Aucoin regularly guest-conducts nationally and internationally. This past summer, Aucoin made his Santa Fe Opera conducting debut leading John Adams’s Doctor Atomic, in a new production by Peter Sellars. He has also appeared with the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Rome Opera Orchestra, the Music Academy of the West, and Juilliard Opera, among others. This season, Aucoin conducts and curates the San Diego Symphony’s annual festival, entitled Hearing the Future.

Aucoin is a 2012 graduate of Harvard College (summa cum laude), where he studied with the poet Jorie Graham, and a 2014 recipient of Juilliard’s Graduate Diploma in Composition. Between 2012 and 2014, he served both as an Assistant Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera and as the Solti Conducting Apprentice at the Chicago Symphony, where he studied with Riccardo Muti.

Violinist and violist Miranda Cuckson is a favorite of audiences for her performances of a great range of repertoire and styles, from music of older eras to the most current creations. She made her Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium) debut in Piston’s concerto with the American Symphony Orchestra. Miranda is founder/director of the music non-profit Nunc, a member of the collective counter) induction, and a performer/curator at National Sawdust in Brooklyn. She studied at The Juilliard School, where she received her BM, MM, and doctorate degrees and won the school’s Presser and Richard F. French Awards. She is on the violin faculty at the Mannes School of Music.

Performance Today describes classical guitarist Jordan Dodson as “one of the top young guitarists of his generation.” A winner of Astral’s 2013 National Auditions, he is an active soloist and chamber musician based in New York and Philadelphia. He has also received awards from the 2011 Lillian Fuchs Chamber Music Competition, the 2010 Indiana International Guitar Competition, and the 2008 American String Teachers Association Competition. In 2013, he was a Young Artist in Residence on American Public Media’s Performance Today.

Julia Eichten grew up dancing in Minnesota. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School under the directorship of Lawrence Rhodes. Upon graduation, Julia received the Hector Zaraspe award in recognition of her choreography. She has shown her work in New York City at venues including Le Poisson Rouge, Dumbo Dance Festival, and Dance Theater of Harlem, and was choreographer-in-residence at The Yard in Martha’s Vineyard in 2011. She has performed with Camille A. Brown & Dancers and Aszure Barton & Artists. Julia was a founding member of L.A. Dance Project and has performed works by Benjamin Millepied, Merce Cunningham, Justin Peck, Martha Graham, Danielle Agami, Emanuel Gat, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (Jagged Little Pill), Ohad Naharin, and William Forsythe. In the spring of 2015, Julia had a world premiere of her piece, O’de, in collaboration with L.A. Dance Project and Lil Buck at Versailles.

English-American performer and composer Emi Ferguson stretches the boundaries of what is expected of modern-day musicians. Trained at Juilliard as a flutist, she can be heard live in concerts and festivals around the world as well as at home in New York City where she is a member of the New York New Music Ensemble, NYBI, Argento Ensemble, and New Vintage Baroque. She has spoken and performed at several TEDx events and has been featured on media outlets including The Discovery Channel and TouchPress apps talking about how music relates to our world today. Currently on the faculty of the Juilliard School teaching Ear Training in the Evening and Pre-College divisions, Emi has also served on the faculty of the University of Buffalo. She received her BM in flute performance with Scholastic Distinction, MM in flute performance, and MM in historical performance from The Juilliard School. Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York City.

Keir GoGwilt is a violinist and writer whose work spans a range of genres and disciplines. Much of his work seeks to present musical practices of the so-called classical tradition as provincial and heterogeneous. He is most at home in collaborative, often interdisciplinary work, in which creative labor is shared and recognized. His collaboration with dancer Bobbi Jene Smith on her show, A Study on Effort, has been featured at the Luminato Festival, PS 122’s COIL Festival, the ODC Theater, UCSD Dance & Theater, and the American Repertory Theater. Other recent work includes GoGwilt’s debut solo CD, re: d, with music by Johann Paul von Westhoff and Carolyn Chen. His longest continuous collaborator, Matthew Aucoin, has written numerous pieces for him, including “Poem” and “Its Own Accord.” GoGwilt is currently a PhD candidate in music at UCSD. He has been a teaching assistant for courses on European art music, hip hop, and jazz music history. He graduated from Harvard University, where he was awarded the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts.

A pianist that “defies human description” for some (Concerto Net) and recalls “a young Peter Serkin” for others (The New York Times), Conor Hanick is one of his generation’s most inquisitive interpreters of music old and new. As the “soloist of choice for such thorny works” (The New York Times), Hanick recently performed Milton Babbitt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Juilliard Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall; György Ligeti’s Piano Concerto with Alan Gilbert at the New York Philharmonic Biennale; Pierre Boulez’s sur Incises with James Levine at Carnegie Hall; and the world premiere of Matthew Aucoin’s Piano Concerto with the Alabama Symphony. Connor  is a solo piano faculty artist at the Music Academy of the West and holds degrees from Northwestern University and The Juilliard School, where he completed his Master’s and Doctorate studying with Yoheved Kaplinsky and Matti Raekallio.

Yiannis Logothetis is a dancer, performer, actor, choreographer, teacher, and mentor. He grew up in Thessaloniki, Greece and moved to New York in 2013. He recently took part in the creation of Destination, a dance-theatre performance directed by Yang Zhen and sponsored by Menno Plukker which premiered in Münster in September of 2019. His love for improvisation and instant composition led him to co-create Performance & Party alongside Elia Mrak and Hannah Wendel. Yiannis received his BFA in dance from Marymount Manhattan College while receiving the “Gold Key” award for choreographic recognition. His professional performance experience began when he became a part of Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More NYC where he played the roles of Macbeth and Banquo. Later collaborations include Crystal Pite and Jonathan Young’s Betroffenheit tour with Kidd Pivot, Bobbi Jene Smith’s Caldera with CORPUS, and Boaz Yakin’s feature film AVIVA.

Bobbi Jene Smith was born in Centerville, Iowa. From 2005 – 2014, she was a member of the Batsheva Dance Company under the artistic direction of Ohad Naharin. She is an alumnus of the Juilliard School, North Carolina School of the Arts, and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School. Her work has been presented by The Batsheva Dance Company, The Israel Museum, Machol Shalem, Sacramento Ballet, The CCA, The San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and The Juilliard School. Bobbi is a certified GAGA teacher and has taught Ohad Naharin’s repertory in schools and universities around the US. In 2015, Smith relocated to New York City, NY.

Carlos Soto is a director, designer and performer based in New York City. Credits include: Solange’s Witness! (Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg); When I Get Home (as associate director and designer for film and concert tour); Metatronia (Metatron’s Cube), Hammer Museum, LA; Scales, Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX; Cosmic Journey/Orion’s Rise tour (Hollywood Bowl, Radio City, Sydney Opera House, etc.) Scenic, Costume Design and Image Curation: Triptych (Eyes of One on Another) by director Bryce Dessner (The National), librettist Korde Arrington Tuttle, director Kaneza Schaal, Roomful of Teeth, with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation (BAM, Holland Festival, Kennedy Center, UMS). Sets and Costumes: The Black Clown with Davóne Tines, directed by Zack Winokur (ART). Costumes: Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine by Julia Bullock, Claudia Rankine, Tyshawn Sorey, and Peter Sellars, director Zack Winokur; The Mile-Long Opera, by Anne Carson, Claudia Rankine, David Lang, Ragnar Kjartarsson, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. With Robert Wilson (as designer and performer): Adam’s Passion, Einstein on the Beach, Garrincha, The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic, and Oedipus Rex. Upcoming: Wilson’s staging of Händel’s Der Messias (Mozartwoche, Salzburg);Sunday in the Park with George, director Zack Winokur (LA Philharmonic); Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, director Zack Winokur (Santa Fe Opera); Rise with Jennifer Koh and Davóne Tines, director James Darrah; Amahl and the Night Visitors, director Robert Wilson (Peak Performances, Montclair, NJ)

Heralded as “a singer of immense power and fervor” by The Los Angeles Times, Davóne Tines came to international attention during the 2015 – 16 in breakout performances at the Dutch National Opera premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s Only the Sound Remains directed by Peter Sellars and at the Ojai Music Festival presenting works by Caroline Shaw and Kaija Saariaho with the Calder Quartet and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Tines was co-creator with Zack Winokur and composer Michael Schachter, as well as co-librettist of The Black Clown, a music theater experience inspired by Langston Hughes’ poem of the same name that animates a black man’s resilience against America’s legacy of oppression by fusing vaudeville, opera, jazz, and spirituals to bring Hughes’ verse to life onstage. The world premiere was given by the American Repertory Theater in autumn 2018 and presented by Lincoln Center in summer 2019.

John Torres’ work includes designs for dance, theater, music, fashion, and print. Recent opera projects include The Black Clown at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart’s Festival, Tristan and Isolde at La Monnaie de Munt in Brussels, Atlasby Meredith Monk with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and director Yuval Sharon, and The Mile-Long Opera (collaboration with Anne Carson, Claudia Rankine, David Lang, Ragnar Khartarsson, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro) on the High Line. In collaboration with Robert Wilson, Cheek to Cheek Live! with Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga for PBS Great Performances, and Turandot at Teatro Real in Madrid. Recent theater credits include Twelfth Night with director Oskar Eustis, Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theatre. Recent music credits include Taylor Mac: A 24-Decade History of Popular Music; Solange Knowles’ Cosmic Journey; and Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration. Recent Dance credits include Toss and Rogues with Trisha Brown, Théâtre National de Chaillot; Available Light with Lucinda Childs at Walt Disney Concert Hall, and Lost Mountain with Bobbi Jene Smith at La MaMa. In fashion, Givenchy S/S 2015 on Pier 26 in TriBeCa, Proenza Schouler, and Yeezy 3 by Kanye West at Madison Square Garden.

With his work recently being described as “pure poetry” (The Boston Globe), stage director, choreographer, and dancer Zack Winokur is recognized as one of the most innovative and exciting talents working in opera today. Future highlights include directing Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George with the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde – the centerpiece of Santa Fe Opera’s 2020 season.

Highlights from this season include his “rich, seamless” (The New York Times) production of The Black Clown, an adaptation of the Langston Hughes poem starring Davóne Tines with music by Michael Schachter, at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center and the American Repertory Theater; his “darkly captivating” (New York Times) production of Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine, with music by Tyshawn Sorey, text by Claudia Rankine, and starring Julia Bullock on the grand staircase of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Sondheim’s A Little Night Music with the Nederlandse Reisopera in collaboration with design firm Charlap Hyman & Herrero and visual artist Cynthia Talmadge; a new production of Hans Werner Henze’s El Cimarrón starring Davóne Tines, also at the Met Museum; and a new piece for the Los Angeles Dance Project at the Luma Foundation in Arles, France. Recent highlights include Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea starring Anthony Roth Costanzo at the Cincinnati Opera; an immersive pairing of Gluck’s Orfeo and Matthew Aucoin’s Orphic Moment at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater; Monteverdi’s Il ballo delle Ingrate with William Christie, Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Lotte de Beer at the Dutch National Opera and Rameau’s Hippolyte et Ariciewith Stephen Wadsworth at Juilliard.

A truly multi-disciplinary artist, Winokur has collaborated with a diverse group of artists in a range of media, including Academy Award-nominated director Mike Figgis, pianist Rosey Chan, fashion house Boudicca, grime artist Pepstar, DJ crew A Tribe Called Red, artists Gerard & Kelly in venues from David Lynch’s Club Silencio, the Centre Pompidou, the Mies van der Rohe Farnsworth House, the Royal Opera House and the Supreme Court of the United States. Winokur was born in Boston, Massachusetts and is a graduate of The Juilliard School.